


Separation Never Suited Us

by WellyFullOfAle



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Emmerdale Big Bang Round 1, Heartbreak, M/M, Reunions, longing looks across crowded rooms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 12:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11898120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WellyFullOfAle/pseuds/WellyFullOfAle
Summary: Robert’s been away from Emmerdale for almost a year, but Vic has persuaded him to return for his 40th Birthday party. He hasn’t seen or spoken to his husband since he left the village after convincing himself that Aaron had moved on following an argument that they were both too stubborn to move past. He returns with hope that Aaron might still love him the same way that he still loves Aaron, but when he finds his husband is seeing someone new, is all hope now lost after a year apart? Or will they find that, actually, a kind of love like theirs isn’t ever over?Future fic, canon compliant (with a little poetic licence, because this is my world and in my world the baby isn’t Robert’s)





	Separation Never Suited Us

**Author's Note:**

> So here is my contribution to the amazing Emmerdale Big Bang Round 1!
> 
> Most importantly I need to thank the amazing vaticanchameleon on tumblr for producing the incredible artwork to go alongside this fic - find the link to this here. I'm blown away by her talent!!
> 
> Hope you enjoy it :)
> 
> (I’m terrible at warnings so I’ll just say it’s not exactly fluff but I don’t think there’s anything major to mention, other than one scene with a bit of forceful unwanted heavy petting, let’s say.)

****

**_Separation Never Suited Us_ **

 

 

“I think it’s a terrible idea.”

Vic couldn’t help but pout.

“Don’t give me that look, Vic,” Chas rolled her eyes as she placed Bob’s pint down on the bar and took his money. “You’ve got to stop meddling with them.”

“I’m not meddling!” she insisted, tutting as she sat the other side of the bar on a rare day off. “I just think a little gentle persuasion can’t hurt.”

“Aaron’s fine, Vic,” Chas replied flightily, unconvinced even by her own admission. “He’s moved on.”

Vic huffed out a laugh.

“Oh yeah, he’s dead happy isn’t he?” she said with more than a hint of sarcasm. “When was the last time you saw him smiling?”

“It’s Aaron, he doesn’t smile.”

“Except he did, if you remember,” Vic insisted. “He _always_ used to smile with Robert.”

Chas sighed knowingly at the thought of it; the memory of her son with his ex-husband, at how they used to look at one another, and how she knew deep down she’d not seen her son genuinely smiling since Robert had left Emmerdale almost a whole year ago.

“Not always,” Chas murmured in reply, fighting a losing battle.

“OK, fine, but then that’s what they did, wasn’t it? They argued and then they, you know, made up -”

“Vic, I don’t need to think about my son like that thank you very much!” Chas stopped her mid-sentence, palm outstretched as if it could block Vic’s words from her thoughts.

Vic couldn’t help but laugh.

“You know it’s true, though,” she smirked wide-eyed.

“Vic, they lived here, remember? I don’t need reminding. Thin walls, I tell you,” Chas muttered under her breath, before sauntering off to the other end of the bar to serve.

Vic picked up her phone, scrolling through her contacts until she reached her brother. Her thumb hovered over his name, before she tapped it and listened for the dial tone.

She spoke to him most days, even though it made her heart ache; even though she sensed in every phone call his unhappiness; could feel he was almost numb to everything now, even after all this time.

Occasionally he’d sound quite upbeat – maybe when he’d done a deal at work, or if he’d treated himself to a new suit, or when he’d been excitedly telling her what had been happening on Line of Duty – but his usual demeanour was quiet, and distant.

He’d been the same since he’d decided to move away just less than a year ago, after he’d given up all hope of him and Aaron working things out.

He’d been especially down these last couple of months, since what would have been their ninth wedding anniversary.

Well, nine years since their _first_ wedding, at least; the one that they’d always counted.

Eight years since their second wedding, on the same day but a year later.

The dial tone clicked, and Robert’s voicemail message played into Vic’s ear. She glanced at her watch – it was 11.30am – he was most likely in a meeting she realised.

_“Hi Rob, so, I’ve got an idea for your birthday. Don’t hang up straight away! It’s your fortieth, and you should be celebrating. So, I think you should come home, and I think you should let me throw you a party. We miss you. Call me back. Love you.”_

She always made a habit now of telling him that she loved him.

She thought he needed to hear it more now than he ever had done before.

And she wasn’t lying about him being missed – Robert had created a life for himself in Emmerdale over the eleven years he’d lived there, and after he’d married Aaron he’d managed to find his place in the village a little more easily, and he’d even found himself a couple of friends along the way. His quiz nights with Bob had become quite legendary.

There were plenty of people who’d love to see him back in the village, especially seeing as he’d left in such a veil of mystery that he hadn’t even told Vic he was going until he’d turned up on her doorstep, car packed full to the brim, to announce he’d taken out a lease on a flat in Birmingham, and that he was leaving that very second.

Her heart had broken for him in that moment, and she’d pleaded with him to stay, but he’d broken down in tears on her doorstep and told her that he couldn’t stand to be around this place without having Aaron in his life, and he couldn’t stand to see him every single day and not be with him. He’d tried, but he couldn’t do it, and he’d had to disappear.

So that’s what he’d done.

And besides Vic and Liv – who’d both visited him, together and separately, on various occasions over the course of the year – he’d cut off all contact with everyone in the village.

“So then,” Chas reappeared before Vic after serving the wave of customers. “What did he say?”

“Left him a voicemail,” Vic explained. “I just think they need to sit down and talk Chas. Robert disappeared and they haven’t spoken since, and you know how gutted Aaron was when he left.”

“Don’t remind me,” Chas sighed, remembering the times she’d had Liv banging down her door begging her to come and help him, tears streaming down her face as she’d found Aaron desolate and inconsolable on the bathroom floor.

“They’re both so stubborn,” Vic continued, unaware of the pub door opening behind her. “Him coming back to the village is -”

“Pint please, mum,” Aaron shouted across the bar, interrupting; Vic’s face paling as she realised he was stood behind her. “And one for Jamie,” he added, frowning as he looked down to see Vic, only then registering what she had been in the middle of saying as he’d walked into the pub.

“Who’s coming back?” he asked her, almost hesitant, aware that he probably already knew the answer to her question.

Vic sighed.

“Um, Robert,” she answered him, glancing sheepishly between Aaron and Jamie, Aaron’s – what was he, a boyfriend yet? Vic wasn’t sure.

She noticed how Aaron’s whole demeanour changed instantly; his face dropping, shoulders tensing as he shifted on his feet.

“Who’s Robert?” Jamie asked, Vic aware that he’d more than likely also picked up on the shift in Aaron’s general demeanour.

Chas appeared with their pints as he posed his question, eyes darting between Chas and Vic and Aaron and Jamie as the weight of the unanswered question lay heavily in the air between them.

“No one,” Aaron shrugged unconvincingly as he picked up their pints and walked over the table at the back of the pub.

Jamie frowned – didn’t appear to believe that for one second – but he followed Aaron obligingly and decided against asking too many questions.

 

-s-

 

Robert’s initial reaction had been to want to run a mile.

He’d never felt pain like he had that night he’d realised Aaron wasn’t going to take him back, this time.

It wasn’t like he’d done anything _that bad._

God knows, Aaron had forgiven him for so much more over the course of their marriage – in the early days, at least – and Robert had never once made that big a mistake again, not after they’d finally made their way back to each other after the first time.

But he had started hiding things from Aaron, and it had been the start of their problems.

He’d hidden the fact that the business was struggling. He’d hidden the fact that he’d made a dodgy call on one of his investments, and he’d not had the guts to tell Aaron that he’d made a mistake. He’d hidden the fact that he’d almost considered having to declare himself bankrupt, in order to get them out of their money issues.

He hadn’t wanted to face that same argument from Aaron, that everything was about money for Robert, and remembered so vividly the way he’d once dumped a suitcase full of cash into a burning fire to prove to Aaron that money meant nothing to him if he didn’t have Aaron.

So he’d been short and snappy, and he’d not been able to give Aaron a reason why, and their arguments had become more frequent than their conversations.

He’d pushed Aaron away, because he hadn’t wanted to let him down.

And by the time he’d owned up to it and been honest with Aaron, he’d told so many lies that Aaron felt he couldn’t trust him again.

And he thought they’d got past the trust issue, so he’d argued back, and Aaron had kicked him out.

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t done before.

But the next day, when Robert had shown up to cook Aaron breakfast – as he usually did to make up for one of their arguments – he’d found a note on the table and Aaron’s clothes gone from their closet, and he hadn’t seen or heard from him for the next week.

The next day, Robert had landed a deal with a new client that had fixed all of their money issues.

And he hadn’t even been able to smile about it, or to tell Aaron about it.

By the time Aaron had returned, Robert had found himself living in Vic’s spare room, unable to sleep in his own bed without Aaron next to him, and neither of them had known how to approach one another. They’d kept their distance, despite Vic, and Liv, and Paddy, and Adam, and Chas – and the whole village, for that matter – trying to push them into a room together to talk it out.

They hadn’t.

And for some reason, they’d kept themselves in that limbo for nearly a month.

When Robert had finally swallowed his pride and knocked on Aaron’s door, missing him so much his heart hurt with it every single second of the day, he’d found another man opening the door that he’d had specially commissioned for them in this home that he built for his husband.

A man he didn’t recognise; a man he’d never seen before.

And his heart had dropped to the floor, and he’d left it there, and he’s sure that’s where it still is to this day.

He’d broken into pieces at the sight of this man in his _home._

And he’d run.

He’d run, and he’d run, and he’d run.

He’d not waited for Aaron’s explanation; not been ready to hear the words he feared more than anything leaving his husband’s lips.

He’d never given Aaron the chance to tell him who the man really was, and he’d never even told Vic the reason why he’d felt the need to escape the village that very evening.

And now the thought of going back to _that_ place, and seeing Aaron again – it instantly filled him with dread.

Seeing Aaron with _that_ man – or any other man – wasn’t something he had the strength to handle.

But then, despite it all, and without explanation, he felt a pang of excitement.

He missed the village; he couldn’t deny it.

He missed Vic, and he missed Liv. He missed Andy. He missed Diane, and Bernice, and Bob. He missed Vic and Adam’s crazy little family – their twins, who he and Aaron hadn’t been able to ignore seemed to start looking more and more like their biological father every day – and he missed the life he had there. He missed Nicola, and the weird way their business partnership seemed to work so well.

He missed Aaron.

It went without saying.

And the thought of seeing him again – really seeing him, and not just staring at one of the multitude of pictures he savoured like they were carved in solid gold – made Robert’s heart beat in his chest in a way he hadn’t known for over a year now.

The thought of talking to him; of seeing that smile break out over his face; of feeling something other than the numbness he’d been tortured with ever since he moved away from the village that night? He realised he wanted it.

He _needed_ it.

So as soon as he finished work that day, he called Vic back, and he told her he’d do it.

She squealed down the phone, and he smiled wider than he had done in months.

He spent that evening on Aaron’s Facebook page again.

Only this time, it was with a sense of purpose that he’d been missing from his life ever since he’d starting running away from it.

 

-s-

 

Two weeks later, Robert pulled up outside of his sister’s house, sighing as he took in the familiar surroundings of the village. Not much had seemed to change – the same stone brick buildings standing in all of the familiar locations; David’s shop still with the same stacks of vegetables outside; the blossom falling peacefully from the trees in the same way it always did near the time of his birthday. He noticed the Barton’s front door had changed colour, but other than that it was as if time had stood still.

Vic beamed when she opened the door to him, hugging him as tightly as she could, like she’d known how much he needed it.

He felt a little part of his heart thawing at her embrace.

He’d barely been sat down for three seconds in her front room before he’d asked where Aaron was, and she’d looked back at him wide-eyed and told him he was probably at work.

So the scrapyard was his first point of call. He found Nicola there, and Jimmy – both sat in the same position he was sure he’d left them in the year before – but they were welcoming and mentioned how they were looking forward to his party. He still spoke with Nicola regularly – he’d kept his share in Home James Haulage, despite leaving – but their conversations had always been purely professional.

He’d never mentioned Aaron.

He’d always wondered whether his husband had been in the cabin opposite Nicola when they spoke.

Sometimes he thought he could tell in her voice when he was there.

Once, he thought he’d heard his voice in the background, and he’d hung up the phone instantly and pretended he’d lost signal.

His next stop was Mill Cottage, and he hesitated before making his way down the driveway.

He stopped halfway up, unsure of himself.

Last time he’d been outside their home had been the night he left the village; the night his world fell apart.

The memory flashed before his eyes, and he blinked back the tears that threatened to materialise at the thought of it.

He knew now he’d been stupid. He knew now that there was no way he should have just jumped to conclusions; that he should have given Aaron the chance to explain to him; that the man opening his front door had probably just been a friend and nothing more.

Liv had certainly claimed that were the case every time she’d spoken to him about it since.

But he hadn’t stopped to find out that night, and he’d reacted on impulse, and once he’d made that move he’d never felt able to return, always fearing the worst.

He looked around their garden, noticing how Aaron had seemed to let the plants get a little overgrown. Robert had always been the green fingered one – his husband had never had much of a taste for spending the afternoons with a trowel and some gardening gloves – but Robert had loved it; had revelled in watching the garden come to life in the spring time, in the colours of nature breathing life into their garden. He flashed with a memory of them sitting outside here in the summer – himself, Aaron, and Liv – and drinking a cool beer together whilst Aaron customarily burnt some meat on the barbecue.

He remembered all of the times they’d spent out here, laughing, and happy, and so in love it was far too painful to think about.

It was still his home – he still owned a one third share in the house, after all – but besides that point, it was still the only place he’d ever felt like he _belonged._ This house, and the life he’d spent here, and the family him, Aaron and Liv had forged out of their weird familial set-up, it was the only place he’d ever felt truly happy; truly loved.

And it was Aaron that had given that to him.

His Aaron.

His Aaron, who had always seen the good in him; always refused to give up on the Robert that he knew and loved, even when everybody else had been quick to judge him.

His Aaron, who was strong, and fierce, and passionate, and yet soft and sensitive in truly equal measures that only Robert knew about, and who had loved Robert in a way that Robert had never felt worthy or deserving of.

His Aaron, who was without doubt the love of his entire life.

The tears prickled behind his eyes as he went to walk further down the driveway, as he went to knock on their front door.

And he hesitated.

He couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t face the reality that Aaron had moved on.

He couldn’t face looking him in the eye, and losing every sense of happiness he’d ever experienced.

He couldn’t face losing this sense of hope that had been brimming under the surface of his misery ever since he’d made the decision to come back here.

He froze on the spot, doubt creeping in and he allowed himself to be taken over by it.

He couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t make it through another heart break again; his vital organ already in shatters, holding on by a thread for the best part of the last year as he’d struggled about his pointless existence without his husband.

He couldn’t face another rejection; wouldn’t survive it.

So he dropped his head, and he turned on his heels, and he retreated back up the driveway.

He’d nearly reached the gate when he heard her.

“ROBERT!”

He turned as the warmth flooded through him, smile stretching across his face when he saw Liv careering up the driveway towards him, still in her pyjamas and hoodie despite it approaching noon, hair in French braids in the same way she’d worn it since she was fifteen. She leapt into him, wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed him with everything she had.

He returned the hug in equal measure, smiling into it at first, heart bursting with the love he could feel seeping from her embrace, until something snapped inside of him, and he felt the tears well up in his eyes.

He tried to hide them from her – tried to nestle his face into her shoulder so that he could wipe them away on her hoodie before pulling out of the hug – but she could feel the tremble in his chest betraying him, and she pulled herself away, hands gripping onto his biceps as she looked him squarely in the face.

“Why you crying, you idiot?” she joked, standing in front of him on the driveway and looking back at him with such concern and love in her eyes that Robert’s tears almost increased twofold.

She paused for an answer, before giving in and hugging him again.

“He misses you, y’know,” she whispered as she held him close, feeling the dampness of his tears against her hoodie. “He hasn’t been the same since you left.”

It was the same thing she’d told him every time they spoke, and every time they’d seen each other since Robert moved away.

Robert still wasn’t sure he believed her.

It felt too good to be true; quite literally.

“He’s not here, if you wanna come in?” she told him as she pulled out of the hug again.

He sighed, and looked up to the house standing before him, nodding despite himself as he followed her back down the driveway.

He hesitated before he took a step inside – the familiarity of it all rushing back to him as he noticed the way Aaron’s work boots were slung in the hallway the way they always used to be, Liv’s converse next to them in an equally disordered fashion.

His heart started to race as he made his way inside – noticing how not a single thing had changed since he’d moved out, save that their wedding photograph was ominous in its absence, as were the old pictures they used to have under the fridge magnets on the fridge.

There was still a picture of the three of them – the one Robert had taken with his ‘extra-long giraffe arms’ as Liv had called them – on the day that they’d bought the shell of a place over nine years ago.

It was still there, pride of place upon the shelfing unit in front of the sofa.

“I didn’t let him take that one down,” Liv smiled at him as she offered him a cup of coffee – black, no sugar; she hadn’t forgotten – and nodded towards the sofa for him to sit down.

He obliged, but only after he’d spent a few moments taking in his surroundings, coffee cup in hand as he let his eyes travel around the room, emotions welling up in his throat as he realised how much he missed it there, how all of the happy memories of times he’d had in this room came flooding back to him so easily and made that ever-present ache in his heart seem so much more weighty.

He remembered the movie nights – the times the three of them had turned the lights off, brought the duvet down to cuddle up on the sofa together and bicker over which film they were going to watch. He remembered the Christmases – the way Aaron and Liv would make a complete mess of the tree every year and then Robert would spend hours rearranging it to make it look less frantic as Aaron would sit and watch him, smiling with such affection as he teased Robert for his pedantic ways.  He remembered those nights when Liv had been out, staying with friends or when she’d been interning in London, and he and Aaron would spend their evenings making full use of every available surface in their kitchen and lounge, making memories that had kept Robert awake at night over the year he’d just spent alone in his one bedroom flat in Birmingham.

It was the laughs he missed the most, though. The way they’d loved each other – all three of them – and the way they’d always managed to make one another smile after a bad day. They’d created this family unit between them, and the loss of it had almost been enough to end him.

In many ways, it had done.

He was a shadow of the man he remembered living in this house – the man who finally found love and happiness in all of the places he would have never thought to look; who finally accepted who he was and let himself be loved wholly, without reservation; finally found somewhere to belong.

And yet he’d managed to lose it all, too, in true Robert Sugden style.

“It’s quiet here, Rob,” Liv let out, reminding him of her presence on the sofa behind him, feet tucked up underneath her in that way that was so _Liv_ that Robert couldn’t help but smile.

She was twenty four now – and every bit as wise beyond her years as Robert would expect – but she was still as feisty as ever when they’d send each other the odd snapchat or when they’d regularly talk on the phone. She’d completed her art degree in Leeds, and was working as an intern in a gallery in Hotten, working all hours behind the bar in the Woolpack whenever she could to make some cash on the side.

He was so proud of her, and he told her all the time.

It broke his heart that he couldn’t be back here, as much for her sake as Aaron’s.

He smiled at her, making his way over to sit next to her on the sofa. He felt awkward, somewhat – like he didn’t belong there anymore – and Liv picked up on it as she sighed, grabbing at him by the arm to pull him back into the sofa, encouraging him to get comfortable amongst the scattered cushions strewn around.

“It’s still your home, Rob, as much as it’s mine and his,” she comforted him with a smile. “Put your feet up, you always used to,” she teased, remembering how when they first moved in Robert used to have a go at her for getting her feet on the furniture, and yet within weeks she was catching him doing exactly that on a daily basis.

“It feels weird,” he admitted, glancing over to her with a grimace. “It still feels like home here, but everything’s changed.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, squeezing at his eyes, before sighing and taking a sip of his coffee, letting the bitter liquid find some kind of resonance with his soul.

“It’s not been the same since you left, Rob,” she admitted, looking up at him as she drank from her own oversized mug. “He pretends he’s fine, but he’s not. He hasn’t been since you left. And I tried talking to him – it’s all I’ve done for the past year since you disappeared, but he thinks you gave up on h – ”

“I didn’t give up, Liv. I haven’t – ”

“I know! And I tell him that, and he thinks I’m lying. Says he can’t believe you were prepared to just walk away without fighting for your marriage – ”

“He brought another guy here!” Robert snapped, had heard enough of himself getting the blame, knew he would have fought to save them if he hadn’t given up all hope of Aaron doing what he was sure he always deserved and leaving him. “I came here, that night I left, and there was another bloke in _this_ house, with _my husband_.”

“Yeah, and I’ve told you before, he was nobody. Some scrap contact, or something,” Liv tried to calm him, in the same way she did every time.

“That’ll be what he told you, Liv. I know what I saw.”

She sighed, shaking her head, unsure if she had the energy to have that discussion with him again. She didn’t know how many times she needed to tell the both of them they both made a mistake before they’d accept it. She couldn’t be their go-between forever, but she couldn’t bear to let them spend the rest of their days miserable and alone because they were both too stubborn to talk to one another.

“Oh fine, then. Spend the next forty years of your life miserable,” she muttered under her breath.

“Liv, don’t – ”

“Well don’t you want to work things out with him?”

Her voice was raised now, and Robert could tell she was getting tired of it – exasperated with them both – but he knew it wasn’t his decision to make.

It was always in Aaron’s hands – it always had been, as far as Robert was concerned.

“Of course I do, it’s all I want, Liv,” he sighed, shaking his head as he felt his heart frosting over again, refusing to let any glimmer of hope inside to warm it; knew he couldn’t handle that crushing loss again. “Too much has happened, Liv,” he continued. “He doesn’t want me anymore.  That ship has sailed, and I just need to learn to live with it.”

 

 -s-

 

“Do you want another?”

Aaron was only vaguely aware of the question, mind still racing from the text he’d received from Liv just an hour ago.

_He’s back, I’ve just seen him. Please talk to him. X_

He clenched his jaw, watching the door as it swung open again, expecting to see Robert’s face there every time.

It was Cain and Moira with the little one in tow, and Aaron shifted his attention back down to the empty pint glass in front of him.

“Earth to Aaron?!” came the same voice again.

It snapped him out of it for half a second as he exhaled sharply and looked to the man sat to his left.

“Sorry, yeah, pint’ll be good,” he shrugged as he watched Jamie head towards the bar, taking his phone out of his pocket again and checking to make sure Liv’s text did actually exist and that he hadn’t imagined it.

He knew Robert was coming back – knew he needed to prepare himself for the inevitable; that they’d surely cross paths at some point over the week he was staying with Vic for his birthday.

He just wasn’t ready for it, though.

He’d never be ready.

Robert was everything to him, and his life had been an empty void since his husband had decided to give up on them and walk away just less than a year ago. He knew he’d needed space – needed a respite for a few days after they’d had one too many arguments and found themselves snapping at one another – but not for a single second had Aaron anticipated that Robert would just walk away like that.

It had seemed so easy for him to do.

That’s what made his heart drop to the floor whenever he thought about it – in the rare, devastating moments when he actually let his thoughts go there instead of supressing them down beneath a barrier of feigned indifference – that Robert had finally had enough, that he’d seen sense and decided to walk away like Aaron always knew he would do eventually.

Aaron had no doubt he was off living the high life in Birmingham, probably with a different person in his bed each night and a weight off his shoulders now that he wasn’t tied to Aaron anymore out of some sense of duty.

He knew Liv had spun him lines – talked about how Robert wasn’t coping, how she’d been to stay with him and that he was a shadow of his former self – but he knew she would be saying it just to make him feel better. It wasn’t like she was going to come back and reel off the tales of the amazing life he was no doubt living now he’d freed himself of the shackles of his marriage.

Jamie returned with their drinks, placing Aaron’s pint down in front of him and giving him the kind of quizzical look that he seemed to be displaying a lot over the last week.

“You gonna tell me what’s up with you today, then?” he asked, and his voice was soft and kind and caring, but Aaron couldn’t find it in himself to give him that back.

They’d met a few months ago, when Adam had managed to persuade Aaron out into Hotten for the night, sick of seeing his best mate in a permanent state over the end of his marriage, and Aaron had rolled his eyes when Jamie had tried to chat him up at the bar, and they’d left separately and without further conversation that night.

When Adam had dragged him back again a month later, Jamie had been there at the bar again, and Aaron had been spiralling in the knowledge that Liv had gone down to stay with Robert that weekend, and the thought of it made him sick with something – was it jealousy, or unease, or heartbreak? – but he’d felt reckless and self-destructive so he’d let Jamie take him back to his apartment in Hotten and he’d spent the night there with him.

He’d thrown up as soon as he got home the next day.

It was the first time he’d been with someone other than his husband in over ten years. _Ex-_ husband, he reminded himself, even if it wasn’t official yet and even if he told himself he’d never be able to bring himself to sign those papers even if Robert ever did file for divorce. Just as well he hadn’t done so yet – but then again, maybe that was why he was coming back.

He remembered crying himself to sleep that night after hooking up with Jamie, and the night that followed.

A few weeks later, Jamie had appeared inside the Woolpack with a couple of his mates, and after Aaron had realised it was a complete coincidence and he hadn’t been stalking him, he agreed to sit down for a drink.

They’d had a fairly decent night, conversation flowing easily enough, and Aaron hadn’t hated the idea of spending time with him. They’d kept things casual over the weeks that followed, up until now, and Aaron still wasn’t convinced on him, but he supposed anything was better than the emptiness he felt whenever he was alone.

Jamie was everything he knew he should want – his mum approved, and Paddy approved, and he got on well with Vic and Adam. He’d managed to nestle himself into the village quite easily over the past few weeks, almost as if he belonged there in some way, and he was a good guy, _nice,_ had a steady job in IT, his own friends, and a conscience. Robert’s polar opposite, in every way. Aaron knew that if anyone was going to be good enough for him to actually consider moving on, then Jamie would be it.

It was just that the whole idea of _moving on_ at all made his heart break all over again, and he couldn’t even bear to think about it.

Robert Sugden had ruined him.

There was no way he would ever find anything close to that again.

It was a once in a lifetime love; soulmates.

Aaron knew there would never be anything or anyone that could compare to Robert; could come even remotely close to the way he felt – still felt – about his husband.

But that was gone now, and maybe he needed to accept he should settle for _something_ , in the hope that it might be better than _nothing._

“Have I done something wrong?”

The question cut through Aaron’s thoughts, and he shook them from his mind as he shook away the question too.

“Course not,” he replied with a deep breath.

“You’ve been really weird this week,” Jamie asked quietly, and there it was again – that kind, caring side to him that should have made Aaron feel safe, and wanted, and respected; instead it just leaving him cold and distant, longing for more.

Nothing was ever going to be enough for Aaron now, no matter how perfect the guy he found. They’d never be that passionate, desperate or _messed up forever_ for one another quite like him and Robert were.

“It’s nothing,” he lied, picking up his pint and holding it up to clink against Jamie’s glass. “Cheers,” he added for good measure, before sinking it down.

He felt Jamie sigh next to him, before resigning himself to Aaron’s mood and drinking his pint.

The door swung open, and Aaron glanced up instinctively as he had done every other time it had even done so much as rattle in the breeze for the last hour.

He’d grown used to finding someone other than Robert walking through it in each time.

Not this time.

He saw Vic walk through the door first, and then heard Robert before he could see him.

“Vic, leave it,” he said.

And Aaron’s chest constricted in a way he thought might end him.

When the flash of blond hair appeared, Aaron felt his heart drop to his stomach; breathing stuttered all of a sudden as Robert’s eyes immediately darted around the room; looking; landing on him within seconds and taking Aaron’s breath away.

He had a look in his eye – one which Aaron could read within a heartbeat – that reeked of sadness and loneliness in such a way that Aaron didn’t want to let himself believe it could be true; seemed too dangerous to even dare to hope that Liv could have been telling the truth all along.

It would hurt too much to prove her wrong.

Seeing Robert after all that time was intoxicating.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away; their gaze locked on one another from across the room and saying so much between them without uttering a word.

Aaron couldn’t deny it – Robert looked good.

Well, actually he looked terrible – there was a darkness under his eyes that Aaron knew meant he wasn’t sleeping properly, and his hair had gotten longer like Robert hadn’t been looking after himself like he always used to do.

But all at the same time, he was still Robert Sugden, and he would always take Aaron’s breath away with how handsome he was, dressed in his blue shirt and leather jacket that bunched up perfectly on his arms; blue-grey eyes staring back at him with such softness he had to remind himself to breathe; had to remind himself he was supposed to be sat here keeping company with another man; was supposed to believe in the bottom of his heart that his marriage with Robert was over and that there was no going back there.

That Robert had moved on from him.

He had to make himself believe it was true.

Even if everything about the way Robert was looking back at him made him doubt every ounce of conviction he had in that fact.

“Who’s that?” Jamie asked, noticing the way that Aaron hadn’t broken the gaze that locked between him and the blond guy who’d just walked into the room.

Aaron thought about lying, but it was futile.

It was only a matter of time before Jamie found out who Robert was to him.

And he couldn’t say in that precise moment he had it within him to care.

“That’s Robert.”

Aaron’s eyes fixed on him still, like he couldn’t tear them away. They’d been deprived of looking at that face for so long – save for the nights he’d spent on tear stained pillows as he scrolled through their photo gallery on his phone – that he couldn’t bear to waste a second not drinking in every one of his features yet again; couldn’t bring himself to look away; only wishing he was close enough to be able to count those spectacular freckles that always took Aaron’s breath away.

“And, who’s Robert?” Jamie asked, and Aaron picked up on the hint of unease in his tone so easily.

Quite rightly so, too.

 _He’s everything,_ was Aaron’s immediate thought.

He always had been, and he always would be, no matter what.

His head started spinning with it as he left Jamie’s question unanswered – eyes still locked on Robert’s as he seemed to reflect back every emotion he had rushing through him – but it was all too much; seemed too good to be true that Robert could have missed him in the soul crushing way that he’d missed Robert; that Robert would have felt the same _aching_ every night that they’d been apart, or that he might have spent the best part of the past year in a pit of devastation and misery like Aaron had done.

He couldn’t let himself believe it – didn’t have the strength to subject himself to the torture of hope and everything that came alongside it – even if everything about the man locked in that moment with him seemed to be urging him to give in to it.

He couldn’t handle it.

He couldn’t stay and face up to it; wasn’t ready for it; couldn’t handle that conversation yet and all of the possible outcomes to it.

His mind was spinning, and he was dizzy with it, and the walls seemed to close in on him as Robert refused to break the eye contact that was so reminiscent of the life they’d shared together.

His eyes started to fill, and he couldn’t stay and let Robert witness it.

He gritted his teeth, and he turned away from Robert’s stare to grab his coat from the back of his chair as he stood up.

“Where’re you g –” Jamie tried.

“I’ve gotta go,” Aaron interrupted him, and with such a force behind his tone that Jamie was left with no doubt that Aaron didn’t want him to follow.

He was outside of those claustrophobic walls within a flash, and he was pacing through the village with purpose to make his way to the scrapyard, intent on spending the rest of the afternoon smashing up a car engine to work his way through the tidal wave of emotions he’d just been hit with.

 

-s-

 

Robert flinched, instinct setting in as he moved to go after Aaron, but he felt the weight of his sister’s hand against his arm, stopping him.

“Don’t,” she said to him, firm but gentle, and he listened to her despite himself, tensing up all over as he fought the need to go and be with his husband.

And that was the one thing he couldn’t get past.

Aaron still _felt_ like his husband; and he still was, legally.

Despite it all – despite the way that he’d spent the last year convincing himself otherwise, and despite the way he’d refused to even let himself entertain the idea of Aaron letting him anywhere near him again – he couldn’t deny the way he’d felt when Aaron had refused to break away from his gaze a few moments ago.

He had barely been in the room a second before he saw him – his hair over-gelled again like it was when they first met, and beard scruffier than it had been since they’d been married – and he knew that was a sure sign of him not being in a good frame of mind, for whatever reason.

He wouldn’t dare let himself assume it was still to do with his absence from their lives.

It was bound to be something else.

He’d have moved on by now.

Surely.

_Surely._

He ignored the voice in the back of his mind that reminded him of the way Aaron had loved him – of the way that they had been everything to each other for over a quarter of his lifetime – and he wanted so much to let himself believe that it wasn’t over between them.

He wanted to fight for them.

He knew what they had together was too epic to ever be replaced, and he knew he’d never be over it, and he’d never find anyone who he loved as much as Aaron.

But he knew he couldn’t expect to show up here after a year apart and expect Aaron to fall straight back into his arms.

If seeing him across the crowded pub for the first time in almost a year proved anything to him though, it was that he was still just as in love with Aaron Dingle as he had ever been.

And he wasn’t about to give up on them yet.

Not even close.

“Let’s get something to eat,” Vic suggested, bringing Robert back out of his thoughts.

He faltered, taking a second to readjust himself back into the present, mind racing with memories of the past and fantasies for the future.

“Yeah, yeah,” he agreed as he snapped himself out of it, picking up the pint she’d bought for him and following her over to one of the booths at the side of the bar.

He settled into the booth, glancing over the menu and realising how nothing had changed in the year he’d been away.

“Cheeseburger, by any chance?” Vic asked him after giving him all of thirty seconds to see what they had to offer.

He raised an eyebrow at her cheek, laughing when he saw the beaming smile she offered him in return.

“Yeah, go on then,” he agreed, as if in reluctance, even though they were both well aware he ordered the same thing from Marlon’s kitchen every single time, partly just to wind up the chef who always used to try and push his specials on them.

He smiled, remembering the laughs that he used to have with Aaron and Liv with that same in-joke.

He felt a stabbing pain in his chest when he realised he might never get that again.

It was a pain all too familiar to him that he barely flinched with it as it coursed through him.

Vic made her way over to the bar to order their food, and Robert took a second to cast his eyes around the room, nodding at a couple of the villagers who he recognised, and he felt a little rush of excitement at the thought of reconnecting with some of his friends whilst he was back.

He found a few unfamiliar faces as he glanced around – a group of ramblers who must have been enjoying the Yorkshire Dales, and a couple of suited and booted professional looking types who were here on some sort of business.

Then he glanced back to where Aaron had been – where he could still see him in his minds’ eye, sat glaring back at him – and he noticed for the first time the man who’d been sat next to Aaron the whole time.

He’d not processed it at the time, but now he’d seen him sitting there alone, nursing the remains of his pint, he realised that this man had been sat with Aaron when he’d been here.

His mind started running away with him.

He was completely Robert’s opposite – dark features and olive skinned, with his muscular arms protruding from the too-short sleeves of his white tank top – and Robert hated him instantly.

“They’re out of onion rings so I’ve persuaded Marlon to throw on some extra chips for you,” Vic announced as she appeared back at the table and sat down opposite him, taking a second to follow his glare over to the man he was staring down before she sighed and pulled his attention back to her.

She knew she needed to tell him.

She knew he’d find out sooner or later – and it would be so much better coming from her.

She just didn’t think telling him somewhere quite so _public_ was such a good idea.

“So, we need to talk decorations,” she started, hoping to get in and change the subject before Robert had a chance to ask her who he was.

It didn’t work.

“I don’t really care, Vic,” he dismissed her, eyes glancing over to Jamie once again. “Who’s that guy?”

Vic pretended not to know who he was referring to, not following the direction he nodded towards on purpose.

“Who cares,” she replied, wide-eyed as she feigned ignorance, “we’ve got a party to plan Rob, and we’ve only got a couple of days to get it done, so get a move on.”

Robert sighed, and proceeded to try and physically shake the thoughts that were spinning through his mind, returning his attention to Vic and agreeing blindly to all of her suggestions about the party.

He was only half listening to her as she wittered on, catching the odd word here and there as his mind wandered to thoughts he didn’t want to contemplate, his gaze travelling over to watch every movement of the man lurking in the corner of the bar.

“Oi, Robert!” Vic interrupted his thoughts. “Are you even listening?” she asked, sullen.

Robert sighed.

“Not really, Vic, no,” he answered her, tone curt and exasperated.

“Why not? Robert, we’ve only got a couple of days to – ”

“I can’t concentrate on that, Vic,” he interrupted her, voice raised to cause them both to glance around the pub at the slight hush that descended from the tables nearest to them.

He took a breath and waited for everybody to return their attention back to their own conversations.

“I can’t concentrate on anything, Vic,” he admitted, almost at a whisper, and his voice broke temporarily as he struggled to get the words out through the tears that threatened to fall.

“Rob,” she sighed, placing a palm over his arm that rested against the table in an effort to comfort him.

He pulled his arm away as he brought his hands up to his face, rubbing his forefingers and thumb across his forehead to dissipate the ache that lingered behind his temple.

“I can’t stand it,” he admitted, broken this time, eyes cast down towards his lap, unable to face anything else in the room.

“Oh, Rob,” Vic let out in empathy, quickly circling from her side of the booth to Roberts, and placing a supportive arm around his shoulder as she sat beside him, pulling him in close.

He sunk into the comfort of her embrace; hadn’t realised how much he needed it until he was surrounded by her warmth and her love, and there was something in Vic’s hugs that reminded him of his mum, and he wasn’t sure if that made it more comforting or more painful for him.

He was almost certain it was both of those things in equal measure.

She pulled away from him, and he sat back and supported himself against the cushioned back of the booth, bringing his eyes up to meet his sisters.

“Seeing him,” he tried to explain, but his breathing was stuttered and he found himself incapable of forming words. “It’s just – I can’t – ”

“I know,” she soothed him as she placed a hand upon his in his lap. “It was never going to be easy.”

“I’m not over him, Vic,” he explained, biting at the inside of his gum.

“I know,” she repeated again.

“I never will be,” he added, voice breaking again.

“I know,” she added a third time.

He took a deep breath, chest rising, stuttering on the inhale and the exhale as he tried to swallow down the emotions that threatened to overpower him.

She watched him for a moment, felt her own heart breaking with the conflict and pain that she could see was etched into his expression, in the same way it had been each time she’d been to visit him since he’d left the village.

She knew he needed to do something, though – knew how miserable Aaron was, too, and that maybe they needed just a little gentle persuasion to help find their way back to each other.

“Why don’t you text him?” she suggested calmly, as if was the easiest thing in the world.

He looked up at her like she was speaking French – brows furrowed, eyes narrowed and his lip starting to curl at one side.

“Like it’s that easy,” he dismissed her suggestion, half a laugh escaping his lips as he answered her.

Vic sighed, exasperated.

“Well, what harm can it do, Rob? You’re gonna have to speak to him at some point this week – surely it’ll be better if you break the ice first, or something? Text him, ask him to meet you to, I dunno, clear the air or whatever. And then at least you can prepare for seeing him again, and not have to bump into him somewhere and crumble like you just did seeing him at the bar.”

She had a point, he had to give her that – crumbling in public wasn’t something he wanted to risk doing, even now he had already lost everything.

Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea.

“What should I say?”

His voice was soft and fragile, and Vic wasn’t sure she’d ever seen her brother look so vulnerable.

“Ask him to meet,” she suggested gently. “He’ll want to clear the air too, I’m sure of it.”

Robert nodded at her, sighing as he shifted back in the seat and fumbled about in his jeans pocket for his phone.

He placed it down on the table, and stared at it like it held some untold power.

Marlon took that precise moment to appear with their meals, and Vic got up and rounded the table to allow her to sit opposite Robert again.

They ate in silence, save for the passing remarks about the food and Vic’s attempts to start conversation which were met with a stream of monosyllabic responses, and she gave up after a few attempts.

Just as they were finishing, Robert noticed the man Aaron had been sat with finishing his pint and leaving through the same door Aaron had disappeared through earlier on, and he clenched his jaw and tried to block out the thoughts that spiralled through him.

When he finished eating, he picked up his phone and scrolled to Aaron’s name in his contacts.

He clicked on the message icon, and winced at the sight of the message conversation that appeared from the depths of his phone memory – messages almost a year old, Robert asking where Aaron had gone, and Aaron asking Robert for some time, all of them sent before Robert had left the village.

He felt that stabbing pain through his heart again, and he struggled to hold back those emotions again – the ones that threatened to spill out of him in all manner of forms if he couldn’t tie them down.

He clicked into the box at the bottom of the screen, thankful that the keyboard proceeded to take up half of the screen and hide away most of their previous conversation as he typed out his message, taking at least six attempts before he was happy with the wording of it.

_Hi. I don’t want things to be weird between us. Should we meet up and talk? No ulterior motive, I promise. Robert._

How else do you approach your husband who you’re still in love with but haven’t seen or spoken to for just less than a year?

He contemplated adding the _‘X’_ onto the end, but decided against it for fear of scaring him away, or making him assume Robert was after something from him.

He held his phone up to show Vic, who read the message and nodded.

He took a deep breath, thumb hovering over the send icon.

“Send it,” Vic ordered in that bossy way she carried so well sometimes.

He closed his eyes as he tapped his thumb down on the screen.

He heard the _whoosh_ sound from his phone, and he knew it was done.

“Wasn’t so hard, was it?” Vic teased, but felt bad immediately as she noticed the fear in her brother’s eyes.  “Stop it, Rob. He’ll want to talk, if nothing else.”

Robert nodded.

She was right – surely he wasn’t going to just try and ignore Robert having returned to the village.

He thought about texting Liv if she didn’t hear back from him, aware she’d give him a nudge if she needed him to.

Marlon cleared their plates, and Vic suggested they take a walk through the village to work off their excessive lunchtime carb intake.

Just as they were putting their coats on they heard Robert’s phone vibrating against the table.

Robert glanced up at his sister, and the fear in his eyes was met with the excitement in hers.

“Check it then,” she urged him, wide-eyed.

He took a deep breath and picked up his phone, getting his lockscreen pattern wrong on three occasions as he realised his hands might have been shaking somewhat with the anticipation of it.

He swallowed as he read Aaron’s reply.

_Adam’s off tomorrow. Could do with a hand at the scrapyard if you feel like earning your cut for once?_

It was such a perfectly _Aaron_ reply – snarky but almost playful in some way – and Robert felt a flutter in his chest that had been absent for so long he barely recognised it.

Vic stole the phone out of his hand as soon as she noticed the smile spreading over his face, reading the reply as she walked out of the pub, before Robert leant over her shoulder to snatch it back as they made their way out into the cool springtime afternoon.

“That’s promising,” she beamed as she regarded her brother’s expression, noting how he looked – what was that – _happy? –_ for the first time in a long time.

He smiled back at her, but he didn’t notice the way her expression dropped as he typed out his reply, aware that she needed to tell him about Jamie.

_See you in the morning._

He replied to Aaron, slipping his phone back into his pocket as he walked alongside his sister.

When they were far enough away from the village centre that Vic thought it was safe, she steeled herself and decided on ripping it off like a plaster – short and sharp.

“You should know that he’s seeing someone.”

She winced as she said it, and her heart dropped for her brother when he stopped instantly in his tracks. His expression fell back into the devastation he’d been wearing for the last year, all progress made through that text message evaporating as quickly as it had appeared.

“ _What?_ ” he almost asked, mouth forming the words but no sound actually leaving him.

Vic pulled him into a hug, and he was thankful for it, aware that his knees had become weak beneath him, and he didn’t know if he had the strength to hold himself upright any longer.

“It’s not serious,” she told him as she held him close to her, could feel the racing of his heart in his chest as she pulled him against her; could feel his arms shaking as they dropped slack against his sides.

She felt his body shudder against her, and she heard the stutter of his breath as he choked back the tears that had been threatening to fall all afternoon, suppressing them still even now.

“It’s absolutely not serious,” she repeated, “honestly, he’s only been around for a couple of weeks, and he absolutely still loves you, Robert. I know it, anyone can see it, and he – ”

“That guy in the pub,” Robert asked as he pulled away from her, and she could see the track of a single tear down his face, his lips red from where he’d bitten them raw.

She nodded, and Robert scrubbed a hand against his face as he kicked at a hay bale at the side of the road, letting out a cry of anguish that pierced through the crisp spring air.

She pulled him into another hug, and he resisted at first, but before long she felt his body relent and give in to it, his arms circling her as he let her comfort him through the hurt.

It was everything he’d feared; everything that had kept him awake at night over the past year; his worst nightmare brought into reality.

The idea that Aaron could have moved on from him broke him, irreparably.

He felt devastation like he had done that night that he’d left – the memory he’d regressed away rearing its ugly head once more – and yet he couldn’t let himself wallow in it; found something else taking over.

He felt anger.

Anger at himself.

How could he have left it this long? How could he have let it come to this?

Aaron was the love of his life – he was his husband, his happily ever after, his messed up together forever. There should have been nothing in this world too big that they couldn’t get past it; nothing too great that it could tear them apart.

Theirs was an epic love story, and for the first time since he’d walked away from Aaron, he hated himself for not realising it sooner; for giving in to his pride and his stubbornness and allowing it to keep him away for this long; allowing him to jeopardise everything that they’d spent the last decade of their lives building together; allowing him to test their resilience to the point they were at now – strangers and soulmates all in one second; each other’s everything and nothing all at once.

His chest constricted with the thought of it, and he would swear he almost yelped at the pain that coursed through him; made exponentially worse by the realisation that he’d been to blame for it all himself.

He’d let it come to this.

He’d let it get this far.

And now Aaron had someone else; he’d moved on.

His husband with another man – the mere suggestion of it turned his stomach.

“He still loves you – ” Vic started, but Robert snapped at her; couldn’t hear those words, couldn’t let himself hope they could be true.

“Vic, don’t!”

He kicked at the ground.

“He does, Robert.”

“Don’t, please, Vic,” he begged her, and her own heart broke at the anguish she could see so clearly in his eyes. “I can’t let myself hope for that, Vic. Please, just don’t.”

She nodded; understanding his meaning completely.

“Okay, I get it,” she assured him gently, stepping forwards and squeezing his arms lightly.

“I need some time,” he let out quietly. “On my own. Just to get my head around it.”

She nodded, stepping back as she fished her keys out of her pocket and unclipped the spare house key from her collection, handing it over to Robert.

“Thanks,” he nodded at her.

“Take as long as you need,” she smiled at him, before pulling him into a hug. “I’ll be here whenever you need me, okay?”

He nodded as he pulled away from her.

He watched her walk away, and he slowly turned on his heels as he made his way through the village, head trained on the floor, knowing exactly where he was heading.

There was a bridge he needed to find his way to, so that he could scream into the void and nobody would hear him.

Aaron had told him about that bridge – heading there to try and deal with the loss of him from his life seemed only appropriate, really.

 

-s-

 

If anyone would have asked him, Aaron would have denied that he made any extra effort in getting ready that next morning.

He did, though.

Of course, there was only so far he could go when he still had to spend his day in a hi-vis vest, but he still woke up fifteen minutes earlier than usual to allow himself to trim his beard and to style his hair just so; ignoring the voice in the back of his head that reminded him that Robert had never been a fan of his hair when it was too styled.

He’d always much preferred his curls running free.

Aaron was pretty sure he could still remember the way it made him feel when Robert used to run his hands through his fluffy hair – the warmth and the comfort of those fingers tickling along his scalp; the gentle moans of satisfaction that would escape his husband’s lips involuntarily as he did it; the sound and feel of it making something blossom in Aaron’s chest that he’d never in his life be able to forget.

He didn’t want to admit it to himself – not properly – for fear that he could let himself entertain any hope and find himself left with a whole new level of devastation, but he still couldn’t accept that his marriage was over.

A part of him had wondered whether he’d found someone new – whether maybe part of the reason Robert had come back was because he needed to make their separation more final; needed him to sign those divorce papers.

He knew Liv would have mentioned it, though.

And he knew, deep down, that it wasn’t over.

As soon as he’d seen Robert’s face in the pub the day before, he’d known.

His husband had looked a wreck, and yet there was something in the way he couldn’t break that eye contact with him that had told him everything he needed to know.

He’d been surprised to see Robert’s name appear on his phone the day before – had felt his heart jump into his chest at the sight of it and a teeming of nervous energy course through him – and he’d known in that precise second that he wasn’t going to let Robert leave this village again without talking to him – and _properly_ talking to him, too.

Talking in the way that he thought they’d finally learnt how to do in all those years they’d been married, but which had evaporated into dust as soon as the cracks had appeared again.

It had always been their biggest obstacle – communication – and they’d never truly mastered it.

Aaron felt a determination that maybe today they could take a step towards it.

He just didn’t know if he had it in him to face the rejection again.

He’d been shuffling around inside the portacabin since seven am, finding himself able to do the odd jobs around the place at twice his usual work rate, nervous energy rushing around him all morning and letting him pick up on his usual pace.

It was just gone half past eight when he swung the door open, intending to move outside and to make a start on ripping apart the N reg Ford Fiesta in the courtyard when he saw the familiar outline of his husband stalking up the gravel path.

He let his eyes trace up and down his body as he walked towards him, hands in his pockets, wearing those tight fitting blue jeans that Aaron had always loved on him and the zip up blue cardigan with the body warmer that he’d always hated.

He swallowed down hard, coughing past the lump in his throat in an attempt to make his voice appear steady and composed as Robert approached him.

“Early for you, int’ it?” he managed to say clearly, hiding away the nervous apprehension which was swimming around inside of him.

“Couldn’t have you thinking I was slacking, could I?” Robert replied with a smile – that look in his eye that Aaron could read in an instant; that Aaron always _thought_ he could read, anyway, but he couldn’t possibly be right this time, because that would be far too good to be true.

Truth is, he couldn’t ignore the voice in the back of his mind telling that Robert must be keen to speak to him, else he knew there was no other reason why he’d have dragged himself out of bed and walked up to see him here at the crack of dawn.

Only he also had this string of doubt bannered across the recesses of his mind, telling him that maybe Robert was only here to ask him for a divorce, and to get that awkward business out of the way as soon as possible so that he could carry on enjoying his birthday week without the thought of it weighing down on his mind.

The thought pulled his heart rate back down to earth, and he shrugged and raised his eyebrows as he let Robert’s words linger in the air between them.

“So,” Robert started as he reached the doorway of the portacabin, voice quieter now as he stood so close to Aaron that he could make out that familiar startling blue of his eyes.

He couldn’t find the rest of his sentence, lost somewhere in the space between them.

“So?” Aaron questioned after the longest of awkward pauses, as they looked each other over, desperately trying to assess where they stood with one another.

Robert felt the need to break the silence between them before he found himself doing something he’d probably regret; something Aaron would surely have no interest in returning.

“Where do you want me?” he asked.

It was only when he saw the flicker of a smile ghosting over Aaron’s lips and the raised eyebrow offered in his direction that he realised what he’d said.

He choked out a laugh, Aaron returning it almost effortlessly.

He wanted to jump Aaron’s bones.

He took a deep breath, tried to compose himself, had to remind himself that he didn’t get to think those things in relation to Aaron anymore.

Aaron had moved on.

“You can help me tear this up, if you want?” Aaron asked, pointing towards the clapped out rust bucket of a car sat in front of them.

“Sounds good,” Robert smiled, his insides fluttering with the realisation that it’d keep him in such close proximity to Aaron all morning, relieved that he wasn’t being given some work over the other side of the scrapyard where he’d have to spend the day just staring longingly over at Aaron without saying anything.

That wasn’t why he was here, after all.

“Your jacket’s still,” Aaron started, pointing towards the portacabin, “still in there. If you wanted it.”

Robert hadn’t even thought about it – had left in such a rush that night almost a year ago that he knew he’d left things behind – but he felt something swoop through him at the realisation that Aaron had spent every working day in this place without getting rid of it; had maybe spent hours staring at it, wondering if Robert would ever return to wear it again; had maybe found himself inhaling Robert’s scent from it on the odd occasion he found himself in the office alone.

It was the kind of soft, sentimental thing that Robert knew he himself would have done – did do, with the one hoodie of Aaron’s that he ‘mistakenly’ packed amongst his things when he left – and yet he never expected that his husband could have done the same, until now.

“Right, okay,” Robert nodded, shutting himself down before he let himself get carried away. “I’ll just,” he started, pointing towards the portacabin before hopping up the steps and finding his jacket on the hook on the back of the door.

They spend the morning working together on the car, settling soon enough into the old rhythm in which they used to work together, elbows knocking together as they pulled apart the engine, the tension in the air between them cut only by the occasional groan as one or both of them tugged on a stubborn piece of the engine, or the sound of some cheesy pop blaring from the radio.

They tried a little small talk to begin with – Robert asking how the business was going, neither of them mentioning the fact that he still had his stake in the business and yet hadn’t collected a single penny from it in over a year. Aaron asked about Robert’s life in Birmingham – hesitant to pry too much for fear of finding out something he didn’t want to know – but Robert kept his responses strictly business, hoping Aaron might realise that there was nothing in his life of any substance any more, not since he’d lost Aaron from it. They talked about Vic and about Liv, both of them so aware of the two constants in their lives being the threads that still held the two of them together.

It was not long into the morning when Aaron couldn’t help but glance down and notice that Robert still wore his wedding ring, the sight of it burning a hole through his chest.

He didn’t notice Robert seeing his bare finger moments later; didn’t realise that had been the reason he’d inexplicably felt a shortness of breath and doubled over in pain before choking out a groan. He’d blamed it on the strain of ripping out the engine, when really it was the ripping out of his heart that had done it.

They stopped for a brew after a couple of hours, both agreeing they’d earnt it as the majority of the engine had been stripped.

“Done that a lot quicker than usual,” Aaron commented, impressed, as he made Robert’s coffee without needing to ask how he had it.

Some things you never forget – in fact, he’d often found himself over the past year making a coffee for his husband first thing in the morning, before the realisation had set in that he wasn’t around to drink it.

That realisation had hit like a fist to his gut every single time.

“We always were a good team,” Robert replied, precisely aware of what he was doing.

Aaron ignored the comment, giving it no response save for a flicker of a double-blink as if he was trying to hide behind something; that wall he always managed to rebuild so well.

“So, this party,” Aaron started as he handed Robert his coffee and they sat at the desks facing each other, casually taking up residence in the same chairs they always used to sit in back when they could spend all afternoon doing absolutely no work, getting inevitably distracted by the way they would look at each other and then finding a wholly different way of spending their afternoons than they’d intended.

“Yeah, you should come,” Robert replied, eyebrows raised as he took a sip of his coffee.

It was good; he’d missed the way Aaron made it.

“Um, yeah,” Aaron replied, nodding to hide the surprise at Robert inviting him. “Didn’t think it would be your thing, to be honest.”

Robert let out a laugh.

“Well, it was Vic’s idea, she pushed it more than anything. Said I needed to ‘mark the occasion’,” he added, using his fingers as quotation marks when he mentioned his sister’s words.

“Well, you are getting ancient,” Aaron teased in reply. “Life begins at forty, and all that.”

“Watch it,” Robert warned playfully, smile filling the bottom half of his face. “You’ll catch me up, one day.”

He saw Aaron’s smile drop as he said it, aware of his own insides turning inside out at the sound of that once-familiar phrase leaving his lips; stung by memories of the way he used to say it every time Aaron used to tease him about his age.

He could tell from the look in his eye that Aaron remembered it, too.

“Vic said I had to mark it, though,” Robert continued, trying to glaze over what he’d said. “And I suppose my thirtieth did kind of pass me by.”

He looked over at Aaron, wide-eyed as his ex-husband regarded him with a look of confusion, as if he was trying to place the memory.

“I suppose Liv turning up turned out not to be the worst present, though,” he smiled, watching the memory flash through Aaron’s mind and the realisation setting in. “And I suppose I’d already got the only thing I ever wanted, too.”

He saw the furrow in Aaron’s brow as he looked back at him.

“Yeah? What was that?”

Robert swallowed down and held Aaron’s gaze.

“You. Us.”

The words lingered in the air between them; atmosphere between them shifting into something uncertain.

Robert watched Aaron’s expression change – the realisation of what he’d said dawning on him with the flicker of his eyelashes as he looked down at the papers on his desk, seeming to try to brush off the comment, trying to push away the way his heart was racing in his chest.

He waited until Aaron looked back up at him – blue eyes locked onto grey with an intensity and understanding only possible when you’ve lived the kind of life together that they had – and Robert felt the swelling inside of his jeans as Aaron bit down on his bottom lip.

It wasn’t meant to be about the sex.

He’d missed it – _fuck,_ he’d missed being with Aaron in that way more than he could even bear to contemplate, and it had always been the best language they’d known how to speak to one another – but Robert couldn’t let this just be about the sex.

He needed Aaron back in his life, on a permanent basis, and a quickie in the portacabin for-old-times-sake was only going to make the inevitable rejection all the more painful.

Aaron had moved on, and he needed to learn to accept that. He couldn’t mess things up for him, that wouldn’t be fair on either of them.

It was that thought that spurned his change of subject.

“You should come, and bring that new guy of yours,” Robert said, the words scratching against his throat as he spoke them, his entire body screaming at him not to say it, not to subject himself to the heartbreak.

He couldn’t hold Aaron’s eye afterwards – couldn’t bear to let him see how much the invite had pained him – but if he had he would have been met with the look of nothing but sadness in Aaron’s eyes.

Aaron didn’t know what he’d expected when Robert found out about Jamie, but he couldn’t deny that this – this _acceptance,_ as it appeared on the surface – couldn’t have been further from his mind.

He hated himself for it, but a part of him had wanted to see the devastation on Robert’s face, his body thrumming with jealousy in that same way it had whenever he’d taken Aaron to Bar West and found his husband being chatted up whenever he headed for the bar, the way his face would contort with distaste and he’d not be able to resist joining Aaron at the bar and snaking a possessive arm around him, hand on his chest to display the wedding ring clear as anything to whichever man was trying it on with his husband this time. Aaron had wanted to see that same possessive look in Robert’s eye at the mention of Jamie, and found himself left wanting as Robert looked over at him plainly.

He hoped maybe Robert had just got better at hiding it.

Either that or maybe they were really over – for good. Maybe Robert really did feel nothing for him anymore; maybe he really didn’t mind seeing Aaron with Jamie.

It was just that his words not five minutes earlier had seemed to give him the completely opposite message.

“Erm, yeah, yeah okay,” Aaron replied, aware suddenly that Robert was looking back at him for his answer.

Of course, they both knew deep down that Robert hadn’t posed the question to ascertain the guest list numbers – it was Aaron’s reaction he’d been after.

Aaron coughed to clear his throat.

“I didn’t know you knew,” Aaron let out, aware that he was dangerously close to making things extremely uncomfortable. “I didn’t know you knew about Jamie.”

Robert’s stomach twisted at the sound of his name, at the fact that Aaron had known who he was talking about immediately – he’d half hoped Aaron would respond with a shrug and ask him which ‘new guy’ he was referring to, that he would insist there was no one else for him but Robert.

But of course that wasn’t going to happen.

“Jamie, is it?” Robert replied, attempting to remain as casual about it as he could, despite the remnants of his shattered heart stabbing into him as they spiralled through his bloodstream.

“Yeah, Jamie,” Aaron confirmed, nervously catching Robert’s eye for a half a second before downing the rest of his tea and getting up to make his way back out of the portacabin. “Shall we get finished?” he asked, desperate for a change of subject.

Robert shrugged his devastation away, finishing his own tea and following Aaron outside.

He pulled Aaron back by the elbow as they walked towards the car, unable to let the moment slide without saying something.

Aaron turned instinctively – almost as if he’d been waiting for Robert to reach out to him – and glanced down at the spot where Robert’s hand lay against his arm, aware of the way his skin prickled alive at the touch; at the way his hand felt so heavy and solid and present against him.

He’d have given anything to have felt that touch against him over the past year.

“Aaron, you are happy, aren’t you?” Robert asked, a frown covering his forehead.

It came out of the blue, and it knocked Aaron sideways.

He had no idea how to answer, because truthfully he hadn’t been happy since Robert walked out of his door less than a year ago.

He hadn’t felt happiness since he’d last woken up in bed with Robert beside him.

He hadn’t slept properly since the last time they’d shared a bed, and he hadn’t been able to enjoy any occasion over the last year as he found himself consumed with the knowledge that Robert wasn’t there; that Robert would never be there anymore.

How could he be happy, when every single thing in his life reminded him of Robert; reminded him of the way they used to be? How could he be happy when during every family gathering he’d find himself in a moment where he’d forget that Robert was gone and someone would say something and he’d look to the side to give Robert a knowing smirk, only to find him not there next to him; or he’d be at work and he’d find something funny that he told himself he’d have to relay back to Robert when he got home, only to realise he’ll never be there for him to tell the story to; when he still absent-mindedly bought Robert’s favourite coffee, or wine, or special bread from the supermarket, without realising that Robert wouldn’t be home to smile at him and thank him in his own special way for treating him.

How could he _ever_ be happy, when he’d lost everything that ever mattered to him?

Only, he couldn’t exactly stand here and say that to him, could he?

So instead he went with a lie, because it was easier to do that than take apart the wall he’d built up over the past year, the one around his heart that he’d topped with electric wiring and a KEEP OUT sign that he’d vowed he would never take down.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay,” he replied, voice wavering as the words left him, in a way that he hoped Robert wouldn’t notice.

He did, but he didn’t mention it.

Instead he nodded, and let go of Aaron’s arm before following him back over to the car.

When Robert left the scrapyard a little while later – leaving his jacket behind again, _“Just in case I come back”_ – he couldn’t help but feel like he was leaving with more questions than he’d turned up with; that the air might have cleared somewhat and they might have got past the awkward first meeting, but that his mind was nowhere nearer to understanding what was happening between them, if anything.

And he couldn’t ignore the seedling of something growing in side of him, that he knew he daren’t left himself acknowledge, even if he was willing to let it grow a little, and even if Aaron had all but confirmed to him that he was moving on and was happy with it.

There’d been something else though – something about the look in Aaron’s eye, and the way he’d hesitated in answering – that made Robert feel like he could let himself accept that little ray of hope for just a second.

He wasn’t sure if he would come to regret it, though.

 

-s-

 

“So?”

Vic eyed him expectantly as he wandered into the pub, unable to stop the smile from appearing on his face.

“So?” he answered her back, as if he had no idea what she was asking him.

She flung a playful slap against his arm as he sat down at the bar.

“What?” he asked her, pointing at the beer he wanted.

“You know what!”

Robert let out a smile, watching her pour his pint before he said anything.

“It was…fine,” he shrugged, careful not to attach too much weight to the fact that himself and Aaron had managed to spend the day together and that he’d been left with a wholly unfamiliar sense of hope afterwards.

He didn’t know if he was kidding himself, and as if the world felt the need to remind him that he probably was, he was aware of Vic’s line of sight glancing over his shoulder for less than half a second.

He followed her gaze instinctively to find Jamie sat in the corner of the pub, alone, staring at his phone with a half-finished pint in front of him and a full one next to him – Aaron’s in waiting, no doubt.

He felt his stomach drop to the floor.

“What did he say, then?” Vic asked him, aware of Rob’s fallen expression and trying to find a way to get that smile back.

Robert physically shook his spiralling thoughts aside.

“Erm, not much,” he replied dismissively, taking a sip of his pint and licking the foam from his top lip.

Vic stared back at him.

“That’s it?” she asked him with an eye roll. “You’ve been there all day and ‘not much’ happened? Since when was that ever the case with you and Aaron?”

“Yeah,” Robert sighed, more disappointed in the truth of his words than anything else. “We chatted a bit. Worked on an old engine that needed ripping apart. I had a look over some Home James stuff.”

“Okay,” Vic replied, elongating the vowel as if she was waiting for the rest of the story.

“I invited him to the party,” Robert told her, attempting to retain the nonchalance in his voice even if his heart was hammering inside his chest at the thought of it. “Him and whatshisface,” he added, throwing his head in the direction of where Jamie was sat at the back of the pub.

He frowned at the wide-eyed look of surprise Vic gave him in response.

“You…what?” she managed to say, despite her shock.

“What? It’s not like I can ignore the fact that he’s moved on, Vic. I knew he would have done anyway, it’s just, at least I’ve,” he paused as he took in a breath to try and steady the unsettled feeling that was rising up inside of him; to try and put words to the feeling of devastation and resignation he had bubbling up inside of him.

“At least you’ve what?” she asked, ignoring the customers approaching the bar.

“I dunno, at least I know now, for sure,” he added, voice breaking undeniably as he admitted it to himself. “I just want him to be happy, Vic. And obviously I wish that was with me but it’s about time I accepted that I was never good enough for him, anyway. He deserves someone, he deserves to be happy. I’m not going to mess things up for him.”

He didn’t even believe a word of it himself, and he could read straight through Vic’s expression to see she didn’t believe it either.

“I can’t expect him to just drop everything for me, Vic,” he continued, trying to convince himself more than anything. “I know what you’re thinking and it’s killing me to say it, Vic, but I’ve got to let him be happy, haven’t I?”

She looked back at him as if she could feel every ounce of his pain, and offered him a gentle smile to juxtapose the sadness in her eyes.

“I’m proud of you, Rob,” she offered as he took another sip of his pint before tentatively adding, “but, maybe don’t give up on him just yet.”

She sloped off to serve the waiting customers, and the movement of the door being swung open caught Robert’s attention.

His eyes locked with Aaron’s as soon as he walked through it, and he held his gaze for longer than was necessary.

He was always able to read Aaron’s expression without fail, but he didn’t dare to let himself believe the way his husband’s eyes had softened upon seeing him; the way the corners of his lips had almost unnoticeably twitched upwards as he looked at Robert; the way he’d clenched his jaw and swallowed down as his eyes had travelled up and down the length of Robert’s body.

He couldn’t let himself believe that he could still read him – that what he thought looked like desire in Aaron’s eyes could be true.

Reality hit back within a few seconds as Aaron broke from his gaze and looked to the back of the pub, Rob aware without needing to look that he had spotted Jamie.

Aaron’s gaze flicked between the two of them for a few seconds, before he offered Robert a regretful smile and made his way to sit with his downgrade at the back of the room.

He turned back to the bar – couldn’t face to stand and watch the two of them, and grateful he was far enough away to be out of earshot – but he finished his pint in record time and sloped off back to Vic’s, unwilling to spend a second longer in the presence of Aaron with some charlatan that thought he could measure up to Robert in any way at all.

He felt sick to the very pit of his stomach.

 

-s-

 

“You alright?” Liv asked him as she opened the front door of the Mill to him the next day. “You look terrible.”

Robert rolled his eyes as she stepped aside and he followed her in.

He was hardly surprised – he hadn’t slept well since he left the village, but being back here in such close proximity to Aaron and _him_ had meant he’d found himself lying awake for hours on end without even so much as a glimpse of sleep all over again.

“Great, thanks, you really know how to make a guy feel good about himself,” Robert replied sarcastically as he let his eyes glance around the room again.

That same feeling of nostalgia crept through him, making his stomach flip as the memories of the life he’d carved for himself inside these four walls flashed through his mind.

He glanced up towards the staircase, half expecting to find Aaron making his way down them for some reason.

“I told you, he’s out,” Liv reminded him, all too aware of where his mind had wandered.

Robert nodded; he didn’t want to know where he was.

Or, more specifically, who he was with.

“S’why I invited you round, thought we could spend the day together,” Liv made her way towards the kitchen, Robert following her as she flicked on the coffee machine. “I’ve got popcorn and Netflix set up ready. You want a coffee?”

“Yeah,” he replied, instinctively opening up the cupboard they used to keep the coffee in, finding it stocked full to bursting with the capsules of Americano specific for their brand of coffee machine.

He looked over at Liv and raised his eyebrows.

“It’s only you that drinks them,” she offered by way of explanation.

She was right – Liv had taken a fancy to the Caramel Latte variety (and he could see a much more diminished stock of those sat next to the bursting pile of his favourite), and Aaron was a tea drinker or an instant coffee kind of guy.

“Sure there weren’t that many here when I left,” Robert joked.

“Yeah, well. He still buys them. I think sometimes he forgets, y’know?”

The realisation of what Liv was saying sent a thrill down his spine and an inexplicable pain to jolt through his stomach all at once.

He recognised the sentiment; he couldn’t count the number of times he’d managed to let the biggest heartbreak of his entire life slip from his mind for a few blinkered moments in the middle of a busy day, when he’d seen Aaron’s favourite lager on offer and instinctively bought some, or earlier that year when he’d passed a card shop on his lunch hour and seen an advert for Valentine’s day, only to realise a few seconds later and after having walked into the shop that he had no need to buy a card that year.

He’d had to call in sick at work for the rest of that afternoon so that he could go home and wallow in his own self-pity.

“So, you want one then? Or something stronger?” Liv asked, interrupting his thoughts.

He wondered whether she knew where his mind had been wandering; there was something in her eyes that told him she understood.

“It’s mid-afternoon, Liv, I think coffee will do for now,” he replied, despite the realisation that it wasn’t exactly unknown for him to turn to the whisky when he felt the same tug in his chest as he did right in that moment.

She rolled her eyes.

“Sorry, it’s just afternoon drinking is your usual style when you’re heartbroken.”

Robert let the comment pass by without response, unable to exactly deny the truth in it and unwilling to address the fact he was nowhere near getting over Aaron.

He’d resigned himself to a life of heartache, anyway.

They spent the afternoon together like they’d never been apart, easily slipping back in the routine of trading humorous insults back and force and awarding each other points for the quality of the comments passed.

They watched two films – the first one Liv’s choice, which Robert managed to sit through despite the constant stream of eye-rolling interspersed with the odd sarcastic comment about the predictability of every scene and the shockingly obvious continuity issues from one scene to the next; and the second Robert’s choice, which Liv managed to switch off from after approximately ten minutes, indulging herself in her social media accounts instead.

They talked in between scenes – tentatively discussing her love life (or lack thereof, since the last one left town), and her plans to focus on her art work more over the next few years. She kept him up to date with the comings and goings in the village – who was married to whom now, who’d been exposed for their scandalous affair, and who’d been nearly killed in the latest pile up on the bypass.

“They need to sort that road out, put some speed cameras in or something, it’s a death trap,” Robert commented, his mind replaying that day so many years ago when he’d nearly found himself anchored to the bed of the quarry with the only man he’d ever loved beside him; when he’d given what could have been his last breath to the man he’d give up a thousand lifetimes for.

“True dat,” Liv replied, finding it met only with a frown from Robert at her idiosyncratic turn of phrase.

She smiled, and let him turn his attention back to the film.

They were about halfway through when she felt herself getting restless and leant down to the side of the sofa to pick up her sketchpad and pencils. It took Robert a good ten minutes to realise that she’d started drawing him, and he smiled as he felt a warmth blossom through his chest at the memories it brought back; how he always used to catch her glancing across at him, or Aaron, or the two of them together as they’d sat casually watching TV together and making each other laugh, passing comment about whatever they were watching.

Robert remembered it all; he knew he’d never been as happy in his life as he had been in those moments when he’d experienced domestic bliss in its most pure form. He knew he never would be again, too.

“You still do that, then?” Robert asked her after a while, making sure not to turn his head towards her to save her snapping at him to return his profile back to the angle she was drawing. He’d learnt that from experience.

“Yeah,” she replied; monosyllabic as usual when her mind was busy drawing.

Robert bit down on his lip and tried to concentrate on the film, but he couldn’t help the way his mind was wandering, reminding him so painfully of the happier times he’d had in this very place.

“Let me see,” he asked after a while, smiling as she turned the page to show him the side profile of his face, jawline sharp and angular on the page, a sadness perpetuating from his eyes even from the sideways angle.

He did look tired, he realised – and unfortunately she’d managed to capture it so well.

“Looks good,” he complimented her. “I’ve missed watching you draw.”

“I’ve missed drawing you, to be fair,” she chirped, smirk ghosting over her lips. “You’ve got quite an interesting face.”

“Oh, thanks,” he joked back, letting out a quick laugh.

She laughed back too, before returning her concentration to her work, pencil brushing back and forth against the page.

“My sketches look a little different to how they used to, though,” she murmured, so quiet that Robert almost had to ask himself whether he was meant to hear it.

He glanced over at her and swallowed down when she flicked her eyes up at his and caught his glare.

“How?” he asked, wondering if he wanted to know the answer.

She sighed, and shifted her legs from underneath her on the sofa to get herself closer to him.

“See for yourself,” she offered as she flipped her sketchpad back to the first page and offered it to him. “Want another coffee?” she asked, pausing the film and making her way to the kitchen to let Robert flick through the pictures by himself.

“Erm, yeah,” he replied, frown etched over his expression as he flicked open the first page of the sketchpad.

He’d always loved the way Liv had drawn them – she’d manage to capture a likeness in them that was uncanny, and she was exceptionally skilled at portrait drawings – she’d come a long way from turning him into a half-human half-monkey caricature like she had when she was fourteen.

He found an image of himself on the first page, his first realisation being the size of the grin on his face, smile stretching from ear to ear, and his chest constricted at the sight of it. She hadn’t added much detail to this one – there was nothing in the areas around him to indicate where he might have been when she’d drawn it – but the smile on his face told him it must have been from when he was still living here, from some point in those distant memories of his when he was actually capable of experiencing that level of happiness.

The next page told him the same story but with Aaron as the subject, and he clenched his jaw together to stop his chin from wobbling, taken aback once again by the way that Aaron’s smile took over his face, by the way Liv had managed to capture the way his eyes almost glistened with happiness.

He was so beautiful.

He wondered when she’d drawn that one – wondered whether it was naïve of him to hope that he’d only smiled like that when he was around, or whether this sight was an everyday occurrence even in his absence.

He flicked on another page, finding one of himself and Aaron together, spread out over the sofa as they watched TV. Aaron had managed to snuggle himself up into the dip of his shoulder, nestling in that spot that he always fitted into so perfectly, Robert’s arm hanging casually around Aaron’s broad frame, pulling him closer as their eyes fixed onto the TV screen in front of them.

It was a position that had been so familiar to him for so much of his life; one which they’d find themselves descending into habitually whenever they sat down together for any period of time, once they’d got the disagreements about what to watch out of the way.

It was one he realised he’d taken for granted.

His heart physically _ached_ with a longing to be back there; to be the version of himself he saw in Liv’s drawing, the pain in his heartbreak finding fresh edges as he flicked the page, unable to look at the image any longer.

He quickly flicked through the next few images, finding it all too painful to focus on them for any length of time, all of them serving to remind him of the true happiness that he’d had the luxury of living through, and which he’d managed to let slip away from him through his own stupidity.

There was one of the two of them stood around the barbecue one summer, both with a beer in hand, eyes locked onto each other’s gaze and a smile on their faces as if they were sharing a joke; there was another of them at the scrapyard, Aaron leant over an engine as Robert stood next to him smirking; another of the them on the beach – it looked like that time they went to Mykonos, or it could have been Ibiza – sleeping side by side on their sun loungers without a care in the world; more with them around the Mill – in the kitchen, or the garden, or when they redecorated that one summer.

They were smiling, in every single one.

He passed over a couple of pages with a number of smaller sketches on – individual ones of himself, a few of Aaron too, as well as Chas, Paddy and Vic all appearing in miniature version on the page – and he smiled as he took in the quality of the work Liv had produced, always managing to capture some semblance of emotion in everyone’s expression.

He flicked on again, and found himself taking in a sharp breath as he noticed the instant difference in the picture of Aaron on the page before him, how all of the edges to the drawing were darkened, how the look in his eyes was distant and empty, and how his smile that had been present in every other drawing was nowhere to be seen.

The next few pages were all Aaron, and Robert wondered whether his absence from the pictures meant this was the point at which he’d moved away.

He let his eyes pore over the images, feeling a lump in his throat at the sight of his husband looking so desperately unhappy in each and every single one of them.

There were images which were almost parallel to the ones from earlier on in the sketchpad, only now Robert was absent from each one, and so was Aaron’s happiness.

The realisation hit him hard, but he tried to suppress it; tried desperately not to let himself believe that Aaron could have been living the same miserable existence as he had for the last year. Above anything else, he couldn’t bear to think he’d been the cause of that; been the one to take that beautiful smile from his husband’s face.

He was so sure Aaron would have been better off without him.

He flicked quickly through the last few images – noting one of himself that he remembered Liv drawing one time she came to visit him in Birmingham – and realised it was a mirror image of the desperate unhappiness he could see in each of the sketches of Aaron.

Could it be possible that they’d both been just as lost without each other?

Was it too much for him to let himself believe that Aaron hadn’t moved on quite so easily after all?

He felt that bubbling of hope inside his stomach again.

“Here y’are,” Liv said as she passed him his coffee, giving him a knowing smile as she rounded the sofa and sat down next to him.

She offered him a smile as he closed the sketchpad and handed it back to her.

“He’s not been happy?” he asked, the realisation of it breaking his heart.

Liv shook her head.

“How could he be happy? You weren’t here.”

Robert closed his eyes, fighting back the tears.

“I thought he wouldn’t want me here,” he replied, voice breaking. “I can’t believe I left it so long.”

“Neither can I,” she smiled, giving him a playful backhander against his shoulder. “I did try telling you but you never wanted to listen. You’re both as bad as each other. Honestly, I’ve never known two people more stubborn.”

He smiled out of the side of mouth before taking a sip of his coffee, as Liv pressed play on what was left of the film.

They watched the last fifteen minutes in silence, Robert suddenly unable to find it in himself to care at all about the denouement of the plot any longer.

The credits rolled, and the room was dark and dripping in silence now that the film had finished, and Robert could hear the sound of his own heartbeat in his chest.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of a key in the door grabbed both his and Liv’s attention.

He could hear a laugh coming from the other side of the glass, the volume of it increasing as the key turned and the door opened, Aaron and Jamie sharing a joke between them as they made their way through the door.

“Hope you’re hungry, Liv, we’ve bought _way_ too much foo –”

Aaron stopped mid-sentence as he glanced up and saw Robert sat on the sofa beside his sister.

He widened his eyes, caught in his own shock for a few seconds as his sight fixed onto his ex-husband, before he recovered himself and pushed his lips together to offer Robert a casual smile.

“Hi,” Robert offered, standing up from the sofa awkwardly as if he felt like he wasn’t allowed to be there anymore. “Liv invited me ‘round,” he said awkwardly, as close to a stutter as Robert ever got.

“Oh, right,” Aaron nodded. “Hi.”

The room filled with the awkward tension between them.

“I should probably – ”

“Stay for tea?” Liv interrupted Robert, could tell he had been about to make his excuses and walk out of the door.

“What?”

“Liv!”

They answered her simultaneously, eyes shooting her a matching set of daggers from where Aaron stood by the front door and Robert by the sofa.

“You said you’d bought too much food,” she smirked knowingly. “Might as well share, unless you’ve got anywhere to be, Rob?”

Robert glanced between her and Aaron, and then to Jamie stood frowning next to Aaron by the door.

“No, but…I wouldn’t want to intr-” he started, cautious.

“You’re not intruding, is he Aaron?” Liv pushed. “And you don’t mind, do you, Jamie?”

Aaron looked back at Jamie at that point, had almost forgotten he was there.

“Erm, no, I guess?” Jamie replied, cautiously looking to Aaron for his reaction. “It’s fine by me,” he added with a shrug.

Robert regarded him with an air of disdain, sour taste in his mouth just from the sight of him, but he swallowed down his distaste once he’d realised he was verging on making it obvious, and reached out his hand to him.

“Robert,” he offered, clenching his jaw. “Robert Sugden.”

Jamie took his hand, his grip limp and his hands soft.

“Jamie,” he replied.

Robert smiled to hide his frown. Did this guy not have a last name?

“You used to live round here then? I’m sure I’ve heard your name,” Jamie asked, and Robert could see the way that Aaron’s shoulders tightened as the subject was broached.

“Yeah,” Robert replied, looking between Jamie and Aaron. “I’m Vic and Andy’s brother, and I, erm, I used to be –”

“An investor in the scrapyard,” Aaron interrupted, aware that Robert might have been about to spill all of the details of their past to Jamie.

“Yeah, got it off the ground in the beginning,” Robert added, giving Aaron a questioning glance and noticing the way Aaron caught his eye and shook his head slightly, Robert aware that it meant Jamie didn’t know about the two of them.

He tried not to think too much about why that might have been; what it might mean.

“You like scrap metal, then? Odd choice,” Jamie laughed amiably.

“Yeah, something like that,” Robert smiled back at him. “Best investment I ever made, as it turned out,” he added, watching for Aaron’s reaction in his peripheral vision.

“So, what’s for tea?” Liv asked, rounding the two of them to get to Jamie with the carrier bag, and ushering him through to the kitchen so he could empty out the contents and talk her through it.

She glanced back with a smirk as she left Aaron and Robert alone in the front room, aware of what she was doing.

Aaron shook his head at her before fixing his gaze to the floor.

“I won’t stay, if it’s gonna be awkward,” Robert offered quietly, making sure that Jamie wouldn’t overhear.

Aaron felt his stomach lurch, realised he didn’t want Robert to walk out of the door despite the fact that Jamie was there.

He liked the way the room looked with Robert inside it.

“It’s fine,” Aaron replied, lips upturned as he shrugged off the suggestion. “Probably more awkward if you leave now, to be fair.”

He offered Robert the slightest smile as he laughed back at him.

“I wasn’t…I wasn’t trying to make things weird, by being here,” Robert reassured him, felt the need to make sure Aaron didn’t think he was being overbearing.

It was proving difficult to toe the line between pushing too hard whilst letting Aaron know he was still there for him; would always be there for him.

“It’s fine, I know you weren’t,” Aaron replied tentatively. “I know how much Liv loves spending time with you, she’s so happy you’re back for a bit.”

“She’s doing so well, I’m so proud of her,” Robert added, glancing towards her with a smile.

“Yeah, me too,” Aaron replied as they both watched her in the kitchen.

She glanced back at them, as if she could feel their eyes trained on her from the other room, and offered them both a knowing smile before she returned her attention to Jamie, pretending to be interested in what he was saying as he plated up their takeaway.

“We must have done something right, then,” Robert said gently.

Aaron turned away, couldn’t let Robert see the way that his eyes had teared up with the way that having Robert back in this room was making his heart break all over again.

“Yeah,” Aaron replied hastily, voice cracking as he wiped at his eyes, sleeves of his grey jumper pulled down over his knuckles to absorb the tears threatening to fall.

“Help yourselves,” Jamie announced as he finished placing the assorted takeaway boxes out on the worktop, Liv helping him to find the plates and cutlery to serve up their curry.

“Smells great,” Robert started as he made his way towards the table.

He felt a pull against his elbow, skin prickling alive with the feel of Aaron’s hands against him.

He spun round and locked eyes with Aaron, sparks flying through him unwittingly and without good reason.

“He doesn’t know,” Aaron whispered, glancing over Robert’s shoulder to make sure Jamie couldn’t hear them. “About you. He doesn’t know who you are, that you’re…that we’re….”

“Married?” Robert asked him, the word holding such a heavy force that it stopped Aaron in his tracks.

Because that’s what they were, at the end of the day – married. _Still_ married.

“Yeah,” Aaron nodded before letting go of his husband’s elbow.

“Come on, it’ll go cold,” Jamie called over from the kitchen, himself and Liv already sat opposite one another at the table, both with a plateful of food in front of them.

Aaron regarded Robert for another second before breaking away, hoping Robert understood that he needed him to stay quiet about their history, that what they shared between them wasn’t something Jamie needed to be privy to.

“Great, I’m starving,” Aaron called over as he walked towards them, letting Robert follow behind him.

They stood side by side at the worktop as they plated up their food, something so familiar about the idea of them dishing out a takeaway next to one another, something they must have done hundreds of times over the course of their marriage in this very room.

They both glanced up at one another knowingly, Aaron passing Robert the carton of the curry with the pineapple in that they’d ordered, aware that it was Robert’s favourite.

“Thanks,” he nodded as he took the carton from Aaron and emptied it over his rice, before following Aaron as he made his way over to the table.

They sat opposite one another, immediately locking eyes over the table as they sat down, then glancing away and looking at anything but one another.

“So, Robert,” Jamie’s jovial voice cut through the near awkward silence. “What brings you back to Emmerdale?”

Robert sighed, still not completely having come to terms with the answer to that question.

“Erm, unfortunately it’s my fortieth tomorrow,” he admitted through a smile and feigned gritted teeth.

“Oh, happy birthday!” Jamie offered, beaming.

Robert smiled back, but even he could tell it was false. He didn’t know how old Jamie was but he didn’t look a day over thirty-five, and Robert couldn’t help but feel a little threatened by it.

“Thanks,” he nodded politely, eyebrows raised.

“Are you doing anything special?” Jamie asked again, small talk unbearable as ever.

“Yeah, a party in the village,” Robert replied, glancing over at Aaron with a slight frown on his face. “Didn’t…didn’t Aaron mention it?”

Robert watched as Jamie and Aaron shared a tense look between them, Liv catching Robert’s eye as they did so and being unable to hide her smirk.

“Erm, no, actually,” Jamie replied.

“Well, I told him to bring you along,” Robert explained with another fake smile.

He couldn’t help feeling a thrill at the thought of Aaron leaving Jamie out of his plans.

“Didn’t think it would be your thing,” Aaron added by way of an explanation for not passing on the invite.

“Well, it is. Sounds great. We’d love to come,” Jamie replied, offering a smile in Aaron’s direction.

Robert felt his blood run cold.

_We?_

Who did Jamie think he was, referring to himself and Robert’s husband as a ‘we’?

“Yeah, sorry, Robert did say to invite you,” Aaron replied, eyes shifting nervously between his past and his present.

He wasn’t going to let it slip that he’d had no intention of taking Jamie along to the party with him, but he supposed he had no choice now.

Robert nodded, catching Aaron’s eye and hoping his husband wouldn’t read the look of disappointment etched all over it.

He did.

“Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help,” Jamie added, unaware of the way his every referral to an ‘us’ and a ‘we’ made Robert hate him more each time.

“Vic asked me to help set the hall up,” Liv intervened. “Are you gonna come and help, too, Aaron?”

Robert looked down at his plate, hoping to hide the smile as he realised that Liv was asking Aaron specifically and leaving Jamie unacknowledged.

“Yeah, suppose. I’ll try and finish up at the scrapyard early and come down to help.”

“Great,” Robert smiled. “We should get the keys to the hall around lunchtime. I’ll probably be up at work for the morning, too.”

Aaron nodded at him, shifting in his seat.

“I can pop in and help, too, actually,” Jamie smiled, still unaware of his unwanted presence or the way that the eyes around the room glanced between one another.  “So, how long have you been away, Robert?” he asked casually.

Robert sighed.

“About a year.”

“Since last May,” Aaron answered at the same time as Robert.

Robert felt his heart drop to the floor.

“Right,” Jamie replied, his eyes flicking slowly between the two of them. “How come you left?”

Robert clenched his jaw and chewed on another forkful of his curry before answering.

“I didn’t think there was anything left here for me,” he replied, his gaze locked to Aaron’s as he tried to convey his meaning. “But I might have been wrong.”

Jamie looked up from his food then, glancing between Aaron and Robert as they held each other’s gaze across the table, and felt a wave of unease flash over him as he felt something dawn on him.

“Any plans to move back?” Jamie asked, suddenly unsure of himself.

Robert took a deep breath, looking over at Jamie for the first time since the conversation started.

“I don’t know, maybe,” Robert replied truthfully. “It’s been good to be back, I’ve not really got a lot going on in Birmingham.”

Jamie laughed.

“Wild, who would have thought a quiet village in Yorkshire would have more going on that the second city!”

“There’s nowhere like home, though,” Robert smiled back at him, trying his best to be civil. “And, besides, my family’s here.”

“Yeah, you must miss seeing Vic’s little ones,” Jamie replied.

Robert nodded. They weren’t the family he’d been referring to – and he could tell from the way that Liv and Aaron looked at one another that they knew it – but he wasn’t going to sit here and correct him.

Not if Aaron wasn’t ready to have that conversation with his new guy.

“Yeah and to be fair this place can be pretty wild when it wants to be,” Liv smiled. “Remember that time when we had a New Year’s party here, and – ”

“I think the less said about that, the better!” Robert interrupted her, before the three of them burst into a fit of laughter.

“You should have seen Aaron – ”

“Liv, don’t!” Aaron protested, smile stretching from ear to ear with the memory of their happier times. “It was bad enough the whole village saw, I don’t need to live through it again.”

Aaron shot a smile across the table at Robert, and they shared a fleeting laugh between them with the memory of them nearly having gotten caught together minutes before the incident Liv had been referring to – a memory that only he and Robert shared.

They spent the rest of the evening reminiscing – about happier times they’d shared, and about scandals they’d lived through in the village – all the while Jamie sat nodding politely and laughing in places he deemed appropriate, despite feeling more like an outsider than ever.

Liv kept the memories coming, divulging story after story that had Robert and Aaron laughing along with the memories and the nostalgia, until one beer at the table turned into four, and then a whisky as they moved through to the living room.

“Shotgun not washing up,” Liv said quickly, looking over at Aaron with a grin as he sighed and rolled his eyes.

“She does this every night,” Aaron muttered by way of explanation to Jamie, aware he had no need to tell Robert about Liv’s chore-dodging tactics. “Guess I’ll be doing it then,” he added as he got up off the sofa and made his way into the kitchen.

“Let me, please,” Robert interjected, getting himself up off the sofa and following Aaron through to the kitchen. “I’m your guest, I should do it.”

“You’re hardly a guest, you did used to li –”

“I don’t mind, honestly,” Robert interrupted Liv just in time, watching her go wide-eyed with realisation that she was about to let the secret slip.

“I’ll wash, you dry?” Aaron asked, a smile passing over his lips.

It had been their evening routine for almost eight years, it wasn’t like Robert needed a reminder of who did what.

“Deal,” Robert whispered back to his husband, holding his eye as they made their way over to the kitchen together.

Aaron threw Robert a tea towel from the pile as he collected together their plates and placed them on the side next to the sink; Aaron filling the bowl and using far too much washing up liquid as per usual while Robert threw away the takeaway cartons in the bin.

They stood side by side as they washed up together, Aaron rolling up the sleeves of his grey jumper, Robert doing the same as he folded over the cuffs of his light blue shirt.

He stood far too close to Aaron than was necessary; could feel the heat of his bicep against his own.

Aaron didn’t want him to move away.

Robert had no inclination to do so either.

Their fingers brushed against each other with each plate washed and handed over to be dried, and Robert knew precisely what he was doing when he let his grip lay against Aaron’s for longer than was exactly necessary whilst looking into his eyes for any kind of sign at all.

Aaron was helpless to stop himself, could feel his expression softening with the way that Robert’s gaze was focused on him so intensely, mouth watering as his lips parted as if to speak, the words lost on his tongue as the intensity of Robert’s eyes upon on him made him lose all sense of reason.

“Tonight’s been fun,” Robert commented, his voice so soft he was whispering into the space between them.

They could hear the blurred sound of Liv and Jamie coming through from the lounge, neither of them interested in what conversation they could be having, and Robert wondered for a second whether Liv was keeping him occupied in conversation on purpose, aware of what her brother and his husband would be doing at the sink.

God knows, she’d complained enough about their soppy washing up routine when they’d been married – it figured that she’d know how them doing it tonight would let the memories flood back; make them realise their need for each other even more so than they did before.

“Yeah, it has,” Aaron replied, turning into Robert’s gaze.

Robert watched his gaze flicker – eyes to lips to eyes again – knew what it meant instinctively.

Aaron wanted him.

He dropped the tea towel, reaching forwards as if instinctively to rub a palm along Aaron’s back, intoxicated by the feel of the heat coming from his skin, from the electricity running through his palm at the touch of him, and he pulled against Aaron’s waist, felt him responding as he side stepped the smallest distance towards him, pulling him into his embrace, reckless with it, all care lost for who was in the room to the right of them and who might see them, it didn’t matter, nothing mattered but this, they both needed it –

“Aaron, your phone’s ringing,” Jamie called through from the lounge, glancing over in just enough time to see Robert pulling his hand away from where it rested against Aaron’s lower back; to see Aaron stepping away from Robert from where they stood too close to one another by the sink.

Aaron coughed; couldn’t make it more obvious if he’d tried.

“Answer it, will ya Liv,” he called back to the lounge. 

They listened on as Liv did as she was told, telling whoever was on the other end that he’d call them back, it becoming pretty clear it was Adam from the way that Liv laughed through some snarky comment she made to him about not being able to last an hour without hearing from Aaron.

Jamie took the opportunity to peel himself away from the sofa and saunter into the kitchen, hackles almost raised as he positioned himself next to Aaron at the sink.

“I’ll take over from here if you like, Robert,” he said, smile on his face betraying the way his eyes narrowed slightly. “You get yourself home, we’ll finish off here.”

Robert couldn’t help but notice the way the ‘we’ was exaggerated this time.

He felt the pain of it all the way down to his toes.

“Yeah,” Robert replied, glancing over at Aaron for approval. “I’ll leave you to it.”

He retreated back towards the sofa, eyes fixed on Aaron the whole time.

“You should probably get off too,” Aaron said to Jamie, loud enough so that Robert knew he was meant to hear. “I’ve gotta be up early for the scrapyard, so…”

Jamie coughed, glancing back at Robert for a split second before nodding at Aaron and plastering a smile on his face.

“Yeah, yeah of course,” he replied. “I was gonna head off anyway.”

Aaron nodded, and turned his back on Jamie to walk towards Robert and Liv in the living room.

Robert collected his things together, giving Liv a quick hug before slipping on his jacket. He watched Jamie lean in to give Aaron a kiss, and saw Aaron glance over at him before turning his face to the side, leaving Jamie with nothing more than a kiss against his cheek instead.

Robert felt his heart catch fire – had been ready to crumble to a heap on the floor with the momentary fear that he would have to watch Aaron kiss _another man_ before his eyes – and the devastation coursing through him at just a cheek kiss was enough to let him know that he couldn’t have handled seeing anything more.

Aaron glanced over at him again when Jamie pulled away, flicking his eyes to the floor as if in some kind of apology; as if he understood every emotion dashing through Robert’s heart in that moment and wanted to apologise for every second of it.

“Good to meet you, Robert,” Jamie said as he offered out his hand again.

“Yeah,” Robert replied as he shook his hand, falling short of repeating the sentiment back to him.

He felt sick with the very thought of being civil with the man who thought he had a hold over his husband.

“See ya,” he nodded towards Aaron, who raised his eyebrows and nodded back in return.

Liv squeezed his arm, seemed to understand every nuance of their exchange and the emotions it summoned up inside of Robert.

Robert turned and pulled at the door handle, opening the stained glass door open wide and gesturing for Jamie to walk through it first.

He wasn’t going to leave before him and let him get any hint of time alone with Aaron; he wasn’t stupid, after all.

He followed Jamie out of the door, all four of them speaking their last goodbyes as Robert and Jamie walked awkwardly up the path towards the village, a vast chasm of space between them as they made their way up the driveway.

“Wait! Rob!” Liv called up to them as they made it to the road.

They both turned around, saw Liv standing in the doorway waving Robert back towards her.

“Forgotten your present, come back a sec,” she called out. “See you later, Jamie,” she added purposefully.

Robert turned to Jamie, hands still in the pockets of his leather jacket as he shrugged a false apology.

“See you later, mate,” he added before walking back towards the Mill with more than a whiff of arrogance, almost as if he’d won some silent war between them.

Liv waited for him to approach her, holding the door open for him with a cunning grin on her face, and let him back inside the flat.

“Just wait here, it’s upstairs. I’ll just go and get it,” she smirked before hauling herself up the spiral staircase.

Aaron was in the lounge in front of him, tidying up the mess than he and Liv had made earlier in the day, and he couldn’t help but smile to himself, all too aware of the game Liv was playing.

He could have hugged her when she’d shooed Jamie away and found a reason for him to come back inside with Aaron for a moment.

He wondered how long she was going to stretch out pretending to look for his birthday present.

“You’ve got popcorn everywhere,” Aaron laughed as he rolled his eyes. “Some things never change.”

Robert couldn’t help but smile back at him.

“You’re right, they don’t,” Robert replied, his words loaded in a way that he hoped Aaron realised.

By the way he looked to the ground sheepishly, he was sure that he did.

Robert stood still and watched Aaron clearing up for a moment, before realising that he should probably make the most of the opportunity and help out.

“Let me get that,” Robert let out, bundling forwards to pick up a discarded half-empty bag of Kettle Crisps and managing to knock heads with Aaron as let leant down to do the same.

“Fuck,” Aaron groaned as they crashed heads, before looking up at Robert and letting out a laugh as he watched him holding his temple. “Sorry,” he laughed.

“You’re not sorry,” Robert joked back.

“You’re right, I’m not, you usually need some sense knocking into you,” he laughed again.

Robert’s smile spread across his face, mirroring Aaron’s, and for a moment he let himself forget the past year existed as he reached out and went for that ticklish spot at the side of Aaron’s waist, laughing with Aaron as he doubled over and tried to bat Robert’s hands away.

“Don’t,” Aaron laughed playfully, forgetting himself for a moment as he grabbed onto Robert’s wrists and held them out in front of him.

Robert laughed back, trying to fight Aaron’s grip as he went for the same spot again, Aaron stepping backwards and pulling Robert with him as he let Robert follow him around the room, getting closer to him with each step forwards.

Aaron felt the sofa against the back of his calves, stopping as Robert took another step towards him without realising, the laughter dropping from his voice as quickly as it did from Aaron’s when he realised they were almost chest to chest, closer than they had been to each other in anything other than their dreams for the past year.

Robert felt Aaron’s grip against his wrists loosen until his touch was feather light against his pulse point, turned his hands around and placed his palms up against Aaron’s chest

He could feel his heartbeat through the tips of his fingers.

He could feel Aaron’s breath against his lips.

He could see the softening of Aaron’s eyes, swallowed down at the sight of it and saw Aaron’s gaze flick from his lips to his eyes and back again.

He shuffled himself another step forwards, until his feet were edged inside of Aaron’s stance, hips almost touching, close enough to be able to push forwards and feel the stirring in Aaron’s jeans.

“What are you doing?” Aaron asked, his voice quiet, and soft, and gentle, and completely aware of what Robert was hoping for.

He didn’t stop him; didn’t move to pull away from him, just held his gaze and revelled in the sight of Robert Sugden coming apart at the seams before him.

He leant in, and -

“Got it,” Liv called out as she started to bundle down the stairs, stopping in her tracks when she realised what she’d interrupted. “Oh, shit, sorry. Shall I give you a minute. Or, like, twenty?” she laughed.

Robert felt the loss of Aaron’s touch before he even realised he’d stepped away.

“No, Liv, it’s nothing,” Aaron told her dismissively.

Robert felt his heart drop to his stomach; it certainly hadn’t felt like nothing to him.

He glanced back at Aaron, met now with a distance in his stare to replace that softness he’d been blessed with moments earlier.

“Rob’s just going, aren’t you?” Aaron asserted, unable to look his husband in the eye.

Robert wasn’t sure what had changed between them – had been so sure that Aaron had been inching closer to him all night; that his wall had been disappearing brick by brick with each knowing smile they’d shared between them.

He couldn’t wrap his head around how Aaron had changed so quickly, but he knew he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardise the progress they’d made, in the hope that maybe – just _maybe –_ they could make it back to each other before his time in the village was done.

“Erm, yeah, yeah of course,” Robert agreed, attempting to sound as nonchalant as he could, aware there was no way he could hide the devastation from his tone in reality.

“See ya then,” Aaron replied, keeping his gaze fixed firmly to the floor as he marched off towards the stairs and disappeared out of sight.

The fear had gripped Aaron as soon as Robert had been close to him; so acutely aware of the effect that Robert had over him. He’d wanted to kiss his husband – needed it more than he needed oxygen – but Liv’s interruption had given space for the doubts to creep in, for him to convince himself that Robert was only after one thing. He let himself believe that it would have changed nothing and that Robert would have let it happen for one night of nostalgia, but then still left him to return to his life in Birmingham.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to cope with losing him all over again, and so he’d taken his opportunity to bolt as soon as he’d heard Liv’s voice.

He fought the urge to stay at the top of the stairs and listen to them, scared he’d have his fears confirmed in an instant.

Robert blinked back the tears in his eyes and made for the door, needing to get himself away from this place and its painful memories.

“Rob, I’m sorry,” Liv attempted, making her way over to meet Robert at the door and handing him the large present she’d been to fetch for him. “I can’t believe I didn’t check you weren’t up to anything before barging back down.”

“Liv, it’s fine,” he waved her apology away. “It would have been a mistake, anyway.”

“I know you don’t believe that, and he doesn’t either, despite all that,” she gestured towards where they’d been stood moments ago; referring to the way Aaron had dismissed their _something_ as nothing.

“Yeah well, I have to, Liv,” he shrugged. “I can’t keep letting myself hope for more.”

Liv gave him a half-smile, squeezing at his shoulder as she watched his eye-line track its way to the stairs as they listened to the floorboard creak as Aaron walked into their bedroom.

He remembered that creaking floorboard, right outside their bedroom; had always intended to fix it.

Maybe that was Jamie’s job, now.

The thought made his stomach turn, and he gave Liv a bittersweet smile and thanked her for the present, before turning and making his way home.

 

-s-

 

Robert cringed as Vic swung his door open the next morning, met with a chorus of Happy Birthday as she bundled into his room with a stack of cards in one hand a couple of small, neatly wrapped presents in the other.

It was hardly an impressive haul for a fortieth birthday, but then Robert had always known he was impossible to buy for, and it wasn’t exactly as if his list of friends and family was overflowing enough to warrant him receiving many gifts.

“You’ll get loads more at the party tonight,” Vic told him as she sat herself down on his bed, noticing the hint of sadness in his expression.

“What you on about?” he frowned, pretending he wasn’t the slightest bit bothered.

There was only one thing in the world he wanted, anyway, and it wasn’t as if he was going to be lucky enough to get that.

He opened the cards one by one, some stuffed full of money – because what else was Robert Sugden interested in, right? – and stood them all up on his bedside chest.

He’d added Liv’s to the pile and opened it eventually, the smile spreading over his face as he saw _TO MY BROTHER_ on the front, followed by the usual sarcastic comment, this year taking the form of _BEING RELATED TO ME IS THE ONLY GIFT YOU NEED. JUST SAYING._

It was ironic, then, that she had actually gotten him a present for what might have been the first time in his life, and he opened it to find a painting of himself and Liv, arms wrapped around shoulders, laughing as they held each other’s eye. They looked so happy it made a jolt of pride whizz through his stomach, and he held it out in front of him to allow himself to take it all in.

“That’s beautiful,” Vic commented, taking it from Robert to hold it out in front of the both of them.

“Yeah,” Robert agreed with an air of melancholy. “She hardly ever adds colour, but she does it so well when she can be bothered.”

“When’s it from?” Vic asked, regarding her brother as she noticed his eyes watering, fixated on the picture.

“Her 18th birthday,” Robert replied, recognising the original image without hesitation.

It was one of his favourites and Liv knew it; it was one of hers too.

His heart hadn’t felt as full for quite some time as it did in that moment.

He put the picture to one side and continued opening his cards and the one other present from his other sister.

Victoria had given him a watch he recognised as his fathers, which she’d had repaired to restore it to full working order, and he smiled with the way she looked so proud of it, placing it on his bedside table.

He wasn’t going to tell her that he’d never wear it; that he would never take off the watch Aaron had bought him on their second wedding day, but he appreciated the gesture nonetheless.

She faffed around him as he got up, cooking him a birthday breakfast and reeling off details of the plans for the party that evening, including how she’d be picking up the keys to the village hall at lunchtime after heading into town to pick up his suit which she’d had dry cleaned.

“It’s like having a live-in maid,” he muttered under his breath at one point, earning himself slap on the shoulder.

He tried to avoid catching his own eye in the mirror as he got up and dressed. He didn’t think he had it in him to face his forty year old self, just yet.

Aaron was already at the scrapyard by the time he got there, and greeted him with an awkward smile as he bundled through the portacabin door, Robert stopping in his tracks when he laid eyes on him, unable to stop the smile from spreading over his face.

Memories of the night before ran through his mind, and he couldn’t help but feel the stirring of some unfamiliar sense of hope in the pit of his stomach, both of them so aware of how they’d almost given in to each other the night before.

“Happy Birthday,” Aaron half-shrugged-half-smiled as he picked up a card off his desk and held it out in Robert’s direction. “I didn’t know whether to – ”

“No, no problem,” Robert smiled as he took the card from Aaron and sliced the envelope open. “Thanks, you didn’t have to.”

He pulled the card from the envelope, immediately noticing the lack of any sentimentality on the front of the card, met with a bland _HAPPY 40 th BIRTHDAY _message instead of the _TO THE ONE I LOVE_ or _TO MY HUSBAND ON YOUR BIRTHDAY_ that he’d been lucky enough to get used to receiving over the years.

The message inside was as short as Robert was used to – _Happy Birthday_ – with Aaron’s name scrawled at the bottom; he couldn’t help but notice the absence of _Love you_ which he’d gotten so used to seeing written in all of his other cards over the years. He wondered if Aaron had felt the absence of writing those words when he’d signed the card too.

(He had, by the way.)

Still, at least Aaron had had the decency not to sign the card from Jamie, too.

“I’ve got you a present, too,” Aaron admitted, looking sheepishly down at the desk and missing the beaming smile that spread over Robert’s face. “I’ll bring it tonight.”

“Great, thanks,” Robert replied, feeling the wave of guilt at the realisation that he hadn’t sent Aaron a card _or_ present that year, wondering whether Aaron was thinking the same, too.

He’d bought one.

He’d agonised for a good half an hour over the card to buy him, and settled for a boring run-of-the-mill one off the middle shelf, and he’d bought him tickets to the band that he knew Aaron and Liv loved, and he’d written the card with a message inside to wish him a happy birthday and telling him and Liv to enjoy themselves at the gig, and he’d put the tickets inside the envelope and sealed them, and then he’d put the envelope in his drawer and never managed to draw up the courage to send it.

Maybe he’d tell Aaron about it one day; maybe Aaron would chastise him for letting two standing tickets for a sold out gig go unused at the bottom of his desk drawer.

The gig was in July; maybe they’d end up going together.

Nicola chose that precise moment to burst through the door, tutting at the immediate sight of Aaron with his feet up on the desk in his boots, then grimacing when she turned to the side and saw Robert stood by his desk.

“Awkward,” she stated, matter of fact and with a hint of amusement. “Well I would leave you two to it but I’ve got too much work on so if you want to have a deep and meaningful conversation you’re gonna have to do it elsewhere, sorry,” she shrugged as she made her way over to her desk.

Robert rolled his eyes and avoided looking at Aaron, feeling the cringe run through his body at the way Nicola so obviously called them out on their situation.

“Whatever,” Aaron shrugged, his voice dipping quieter than usual. “I’ve got loads to do out there anyway,” he added as he got up and made his way to the door. “See you later, yeah?”

Robert gave him a half smile and nodded.

He turned his attention straight outside of the window and watched on as Aaron made his way towards one of the cars and started hulking away at the engine, enjoying the way he could see the muscles in his arms tensing as he tore the metal away.

He contemplated going outside to join him – memories of a couple of days before when he’d managed to spend the day so close to Aaron, when he’d been able to feel a sense of hope that something still lingered there – but he knew he had to finish off some things for Home James if he was going to be ready to meet Victoria at lunchtime, and he was still planning on heading back to Birmingham the next day.

That was if he was sure there was going to be nothing left for him to stick around for, anyway.

“Are you going to do any work today Robert or are you just going to stare at your long lost love all day?” Nicola asked him, before slamming down a pile of folders onto his desk. “Only I think you’re overdue a bit of admin seeing as I’ve been holding the fort here since you ran away – ”

“I didn’t run away,” Robert interjected, offended.

“Yes you did,” she replied tartly. “Your fella ditched you so you ran off to Birmingham, of all places. Don’t pretend otherwise. Now you can pull your weight, I don’t care what day it is.”

“Wow, thanks,” Robert replied, deadpan as he picked up the pile of papers. “Happy birthday to me,” he muttered under his breath.

“You can celebrate later,” Nicola replied, aware she wasn’t meant to have heard but pointing out that she had done anyway. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

They spent the rest of the morning working together in silence, Robert finding his productivity levels vastly reduced due to his burgeoning need to stare outside the window every few minutes to watch Aaron at work. He was sure every time he glanced over that he could see Aaron’s eyes fixed in his direction, and wondered whether Aaron could see him through the blinds at the window.

He felt a prickle run through him every time he glanced over and found Aaron looking his way; let himself believe that maybe Aaron’s mind was racing with all of the thoughts he was sharing, too; wondering if he would ever be so lucky to have another chance.

There was a part of him that didn’t want to entertain the hope of getting Aaron back, aware that he’d never be able to stomach the pain of being proven wrong; but another side to him watched the way that Aaron had been acting around him the past few days, and listened to all of the comments made from Liv and Vic about Aaron’s state of mind, and wanted more than anything for them to be right.

He wanted Aaron back.

Nothing in his life was quite the same without him – days were darker, emotions were numb – and he needed the brightness of Aaron’s love back in his life more than he needed oxygen.

He didn’t want to live this pitiful existence any longer, and he was starting to suspect that Aaron didn’t want to either.

They spent the rest of the morning dancing around each other’s loaded glances from either side of the flimsy portacabin wall, and when Nicola left for her lunch it was all of three seconds before Aaron made his way back inside under the pretence of needing a brew.

Robert knew he had to say something; knew he couldn’t let it linger much longer, the anticipation of it overwhelming him.

“Last night was good – ”

“Don’t, Robert,” Aaron interrupted him, his tone much darker than Robert’s had been, and his hopes felt dashed immediately.

“Sorry, I just – ”

“When are you leaving?” Aaron asked, cutting him off again.

Robert frowned, thrown off course by the coldness in Aaron’s tone.

“Erm, what? To decorate the hall?”

“Emmerdale,” Aaron answered curtly. “When are you leaving Emmerdale?”

Robert felt the air punched from his lungs, looking back at Aaron’s blank expression and trying desperately not to feel like the world was being ripped away from under his feet all over again.

He didn’t understand – the night before, he’d been so sure that there might have been something, that they might have really had a chance, and he was sure he hadn’t imagined that look in Aaron’s eye – but now he seemed so distant, like he really couldn’t wait for Robert to be out of the way again.

“Why?” Robert asked.

It was all the response he could muster.

Aaron exhaled, rolling his eyes as he tried to stop himself from believing that Robert really was back here for more than just his birthday party, that nagging voice in the back of his mind perpetuating the doubt inside of him, telling him that Robert wasn’t after sticking around, that he’d take what he could whilst he was here but then he’d be back in Birmingham as soon as he could be.

And then Aaron would be left, all alone and heartbroken afresh.

“When, Robert?” he pushed again, tea spoon clinking forcefully against the side of his favourite mug.

He needed to know before it was too late, before he let himself gravitate back too far into Robert’s orbit again.

“Tomorrow, maybe,” Robert answered.

He noticed the way that Aaron’s eyes blinked as he nodded, his jaw clenching slightly as if it wasn’t the answer Aaron had wanted to hear; as if his answer had confirmed all of Aaron’s worst fears.

“Right, okay,” he responded with a shrug. “So, you really were just back here for the party, then.”

It was a statement more than it was a question, as if he’d been telling himself that had been the case and he’d needed something to back up his suspicions; and all the while as if it wasn’t the answer he’d truthfully wanted to hear.

“What?” Robert replied, confused as he read Aaron’s expression.

Aaron shook his head and made for the door of the portacabin, taking his tea with him as he bolted out into the yard and back to the car he’d been working on.

Robert shot up from his desk and followed him, catching his leg on the corner of the desk as he rounded it too quickly and hobbling down the steps of the portacabin as he cursed and rubbed at his thigh.

“What was that about, Aaron?” he pushed as he followed him to the other side of the yard.

“Dun’t matter,” Aaron dismissed him with a downturn of his mouth that was so distinctly _Aaron_ that it made a wave of affection run through Robert’s insides, despite it all.

“Okay, well I’m only leaving tomorrow if there’s nothing for me to stay for,” Robert said, arms out to his sides as he shrugged away the enormity of what he’d just said.

He watched Aaron look up at him, taking in his words carefully.

“So there we go, I said it,” he added.

Aaron watched him a second longer before feeling a nervousness swell through him; a wave of anxiety that despite his highest hopes, he might be misinterpreting Robert’s words.

He needed them spelled out.

“You said nothing, not properly,” Aaron muttered under his breath, returning his attention to the car engine.

“How hard do you want to make this, Aaron?”

“Oh, there you are!”

They both looked up as Vic made her way up the stony path to the scrapyard, smile stretched across her face, completely oblivious to what she was interrupting.

Robert sighed and dropped his arms to his side.

“How’s the birthday boy?” she joked. “Not being too annoying, I hope,” she smiled at Aaron.

“You know him, he’s always annoying,” Aaron shrugged in reply, before closing down the bonnet of the car.

“Oh great, are you done then?” she asked, taking that as a sign that Aaron must be finishing up. “Rob said you told him last night you’d help us decorate, I’m just heading down there now, you can both walk with me.”

“Vic, I don’t think – ”

“Nah-ah,” Vic interrupted her brother, aware he’d try and get Aaron off the hook. “No excuses, we need all hands on deck so go and get your stuff and we’ll go now, I need to meet Eric with the keys in five minutes.”

Robert looked over at Aaron, catching his eye for half a second before he blinked away, Aaron already accepting defeat and making his way over to the portacabin to pick up his stuff.

They made their way from the scrap yard to the village hall, walking along with a slight air of awkwardness between them, letting Vic's voice fill the air with a never ending tirade of excitement and ideas about which decorations she'd bought from the wholesalers earlier that day and where she was going to put them to make the room look pretty.  
  
They both interjected every so often with as many encouraging acknowledgments as they could muster, sharing a knowing glance between the two of them over her shoulder as she got carried away with herself.

Robert was sure he almost saw Aaron smile at one point, but he wasn’t sure where that fit in with the way that Aaron had been so cold to him only moments earlier.  
  
"I'm gonna make it the best party," Vic exclaimed as they made it to outside the hall, turning to face them as they stood waiting for Eric.  
  
"Thanks sis, you've done great," Robert smiled, flinging an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into a tight squeeze.  
  
"Yeah, well," she said slowly as she held Robert’s gaze, eyes widening like she knew what she was about to say was bordering on inappropriate. "You've had a difficult year, haven’t you? Maybe tonight could be, you know, an opportunity to...put all of that behind you?"  
  
She glanced over to Aaron, making sure he’d heard her and hoping he wasn’t as oblivious to her meaning as he was letting on.  
  
Robert looked over at Aaron, the air around them still awkward, mind racing with the memory of what had almost happened the night before and the conversation they’d just dodged in the scrapyard.  
  
Aaron looked away first, kicking at the ground and looking down to regard his feet, unsure of himself all of a sudden.  
  
"I doubt it," Robert muttered under his breath, ushering Vic towards the front door of the village hall where he could see Eric was waiting with the keys.  
  
He daren't look at Aaron, unsure if he'd even have heard him, but if he'd have had the courage to do so he'd have been met with the look of a man on the edge of renewed heartbreak all over again.

 

-s-

 

 

 

They had the hall decorated in no time, but had managed to avoid each other despite Vic’s attempts to set them onto similar tasks to try and make them work alongside each other.

“What’s going on with you two?” she asked Robert about a half hour in, having picked up on the way they were so stand-offish with one another.

“Nothing,” Robert insisted.

“Well it doesn’t seem like nothing,” she pressed. “Honestly, I could cut the tension in this room with a knife.”

“Stop it, Vic, okay?” he pleaded with her, glancing over at Aaron as his phone rang. “Besides, Jamie said he was gonna help too, he’ll be here in a bit.”

“You what?” she questioned.

“You heard,” he replied, climbing back up the ladders with a trio of balloons in order to stick them on the wall, sellotape sticking to his fingers.

“So I create some not-so-subtle reason for you and Aaron to spend some time together and you invited his new fella along?”

“He invited himself!” Robert replied a little too loudly, Aaron glancing over when he heard. “And anyway,” he added a little more quietly, “what are you doing that for? You trying to set us up again or something?”

Vic rolled her eyes at him.

“Finally, he gets it,” she muttered.

“You what?”

“Look Robert, it’s obvious you’re both still madly in love with each other, I think you two are the only ones who don’t realise it –”

“Vic!”

“No, Robert!” she interrupted him before he had the chance to deny it, lowering her tone to make sure only her brother could hear her. “When are you just gonna have a conversation with him and sort it out?”

Robert held her stare for a few moments, until they noticed Aaron hanging up the phone and making his way out of the front door

“Well, I tried earlier, didn’t I,” Robert told her now the subject of their conversation had left the room.

“And?” she asked expectantly.

“And you appeared before we could finish talking, Vic.”

“Oh,” she replied, mind replaying the situation she’d walked in on at the scrapyard.

“Yeah, ‘Oh’,” Robert repeated with an air of annoyance.

They both looked over as the door opened again, Aaron walking back inside with Jamie in tow.

“Great,” Robert added sarcastically, turning away to fix the balloons into place on the wall.

“Looking good in here,” Jamie said smugly, aware of his own presence in the room and its effect on the birthday man.

Robert gritted his teeth before turning around to face him.

“I think we’re all done, actually,” Vic stepped in, taking the words from Robert’s mouth. “Sorry if it’s been a wasted trip for ya, we’re heading home now.”

Jamie looked up to Robert and nodded, sharing a knowing look between them.

“No, it’s no problem,” Jamie answered her as diplomatically as ever. “Just popped in on my way through, doing some errands. Wanted to see this one,” he smiled over at Aaron, who returned his look with a questioning grimace.

Robert descended the ladders, watching on as Jamie shuffled closer to Aaron and tried to snake an arm around his waist.

Robert felt his blood running cold, until he saw Aaron flinch away from him, creating some distance between the two of them instinctively, almost as if Jamie’s touch had repulsed him.

“What you doing?” Aaron dismissed Jamie, glancing over at Robert and then back to his boyfriend.

Jamie looked put out all of a sudden, and Robert couldn’t help the smug smile from covering his face.

He bit his lip and looked away, hoping Aaron hadn’t seen it.

“You might as well get off then, carry on with whatever you were doing,” Aaron told him, nodding towards the door.

“Yeah, okay babe,” Jamie said, ignoring the way Aaron’s lip curled at the unfamiliar term of affection. “I’ll come round and pick you up tonight then?”

Aaron clenched his jaw before nodding.

“Eight okay?” Jamie asked.

“Yeah, whatever,” Aaron replied, before turning back to placing out the bowls of cling-film covered crisps on the buffet table.

“See you then,” Jamie added as he walked towards the door, Robert offering a self-satisfied nod in his direction. “Happy Birthday,” he added, as disingenuously as someone without a backbone could manage.

“See you,” Robert added with a smile.

He glanced over to Aaron when Jamie had disappeared; saw his husband looking back at him with what looked like an apology.

Robert felt something blossom inside his chest, and he felt it again – that simmering of hope; that inkling that he might still have a chance; that sense that Aaron might still be his.

He wasn’t giving up without a fight.

Not anymore.

 

-s-

 

 

Aaron looked at himself in the mirror; looked himself up and down and then dead in the eye, warily.

He knew he looked good – knew Robert would like what he saw tonight – but he didn’t know if he could let himself drop his guard.

He’d been so sure that Robert was only back for his party, only back because Vic had forced him to be, and that he’d be counting down the days until he could return to what was no doubt his new-and-improved life in Birmingham, but he couldn’t understand why so many things Robert had done and said in the past few days let him doubt it.

He wasn’t sure he could let himself hope; it seemed too dangerous.

He heard the knock at the door, and he flickered his eyes closed at the sound of it before making his way downstairs.

He knew to expect Jamie on the other side of the door – it was 7.59 precisely, and Jamie was a stickler for time – but he couldn't help the way his stomach dropped on seeing him instead of who he really wanted to find that side of the door.  
  
He was stood there working the smart/casual look like he'd been nothing near casual when selecting it – dark jeans and a black shirt stretched tight over his broad shoulders and chest, biceps straining against the dark material, top two buttons left open and his hair styled a little more than usual that told Aaron he’d really made an extra effort.

He looked good, but Aaron couldn't have been less interested now.  
  
"Hi," he offered with a forced smile.  
  
"Wow," Jamie replied, letting his eyes travel the full length of Aaron's body before working back up to meet his eyes. "You look, wow," he repeated.  
  
Aaron wanted to tell him to shut his mouth closed, wanted to let him know none of it was for his benefit, that he didn’t have the right to enjoy this suit – not tonight, and not ever.  
  
"I've never seen you in a suit," Jamie commented, looking like he was having to remind himself not to let his tongue hang out of his mouth.  
  
_Well you wouldn't have_ , Aaron thought to himself. _You hardly know me_.  
  
He kept it to himself though, flicking up a raised eyebrow at him instead.  
  
"Thought I should make the effort," Aaron replied casually. "No big deal."  
  
Except he knew that was a lie; it _was_ a big deal, of course it was.

When were he and Robert ever _not_ a big deal, in all honesty?  
  
He knew exactly what he was doing.  
  
It was the same navy blue suit that he'd worn for his and Roberts anniversary dinner two years ago – the one that had had Robert eating out of the palm of his hand all night and making all sorts of promises to him at the table in the posh restaurant Robert had taken them to.  
  
Needless to say he’d followed through with every single one of them once they’d locked themselves into their room later that night, too. Aaron flushed with the memory of it, his neck prickling with the heat of the memory of the way Robert used to make him feel, with the way that Robert knew his body better than anyone else ever could.  
  
It was safe to say Robert loved this suit, and Aaron knew precisely what he was doing by wearing it.

“Ready to go?” Jamie asked.

Aaron patted down his pockets and checked for the essentials – phone, wallet, keys – and paced over to pick up Robert’s present from the coffee table before nodding in Jamie’s direction.

“Liv not coming?” he remarked, glancing around the room and finding her absent.

“She’s already over there,” Aaron told him, ushering him out of the door and closing it shut behind them.

“Bit weird, isn’t it?” Jamie started, grimace on his face as they walked up the driveway and across the village towards the party, Aaron widening the gap between them as they walked, aware of Jamie’s attempts to walk as close to him as he could.

It was a beautiful spring evening, dusk settling and a slight chill in the air, the feint sound of the party carrying through the still air, directing them on their way.

“What’s weird?”

“Liv and Robert,” Jamie explained, seemingly amused. “They seem pretty close, isn’t he almost twice her age?”

Aaron stopped in his path for a second, face distorted with disgust as he reacted to what he was sure Jamie was insinuating.

“What? No! Liv and Robert?” Aaron’s voice was sharp with disgust. “That’s ridiculous; you don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

Jamie stopped in his tracks, turning to face Aaron with his hands on his hips, letting out a laugh littered with disbelief.

“Well, do you wanna tell me then?” he snapped, suddenly so aware of this distance that Aaron was creating between them, and the way that Aaron had started to look at him differently in the last week.

Since Robert had reappeared, funnily enough.

“Tell you what?”

Aaron kicked at the stones on the floor, hands in the pockets of his suit trousers as he tried to pretend he didn’t know precisely what Jamie was referring to.

“Tell me why you’ve flicked a switch and gone so cold on me all of a sudden, and why it just so happened to start when Robert bloody Sugden reappeared? And why he’s hanging out at your house all day with your little sister? And why he seems to know where everything in your house is? And why you’ve never mentioned him and yet last night he seemed to be in every single memory you could drag up about this stupid fucking village? And why there’s a picture of the three of you on the fucking mantelpiece in your fucking front room – ”

“He’s my husband!” Aaron shouted, his response slicing through Jamie’s words with a sharpness that Aaron couldn’t ignore. “He’s my husband, okay,” he added, shrugging as if that statement wasn’t the most important thing in the entire world to him.

Jamie stood open-mouthed, letting the shock of Aaron’s admission sink in before letting out an incredulous laugh.

“Husband?” he answered eventually, his tone sharp and almost disbelieving. “I didn’t even…you never said?”

Aaron sighed, shrugging his shoulders as he looked away, focusing on nothing of any interest in the distance, anything to keep him from watching Jamie overreact to his news.

He turned back and looked at Jamie who stood still staring at him in the street as if he was awaiting an explanation.

“Well, now you know,” Aaron said, arms outstretched to the side casually like his admission was inconsequential.

He saw the way that Jamie’s face distorted, sure he could see the glaze in his eyes as if they’d teared over, and found himself shaking his head with antipathy.

“And you’re still married?” he asked eventually, wiping away a rogue tear with his fisted hands, his voice breaking with it.

They’d only been together a few weeks and Aaron could hardly believe he was reacting like this.

“We just, we never got divorced,” Aaron explained with a shrug. “He left last year, and we didn’t speak until he appeared here the other day.”

“But it’s definitely over?”

The question threw Aaron off guard, and he kicked his feet against the floor and frowned in Jamie’s direction.

“What do you mean?” he asked, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“I mean, is it over?” Jamie repeated, increased focus on the three simple words of his question.

Aaron tried to find an answer but realised he couldn’t admit the truth – even to himself – and he couldn’t lie and give Jamie the one he wanted to hear.

“Well, thanks. Your hesitation says everything,” Jamie croaked as he went to walk away.

Aaron hesitated, realising in the depth of his heart he had no need to go after Jamie – that whatever feeling of _safety_ or _comfort_ he’d felt for Jamie had paled into insignificance as soon as Robert had walked back in to the pub a few days ago – but he had never been the kind of guy that could stand and watch someone break in front of him and ignore it; had never been good at ending things even if they’d become insignificant.

“Jamie, wait,” he called out, pacing towards him and pulling him back by his elbow until they were face to face.

He sighed, rolling his head on his shoulders as he glanced around nervously.

“Look, me and Robert, it’s…I dunno, it’s hard to explain. It’s intense and it always has been, and I’m never gonna not be in love with him,” Aaron sighed, feeling the discomfort with letting himself open up like this, unease crawling through his skin. “He’s my husband, and you wouldn’t believe the things we’ve been through together, but he doesn’t want me anymore, and he’s going back to Birmingham tomorrow,” he shrugged, letting the rest of his point go unsaid.

“So I should just let you settle for me instead, even if you’re in love with someone else?”

Aaron chewed on the inside of his gum, shrugging his shoulders as he exhaled.

“It’s all that’s on offer, Jamie. Take it or leave it.”

He stood across from Jamie in the street – let his words sink in, and watched the thought process make its way through Jamie’s mind; let the realisation of his bare honest truth sink in for him.

Because that’s what it was, at the end of the day – it was the truth.

He was always going to be in love with Robert, and nothing was ever going to change that, whether Robert was around in his life or not; nobody could ever compare.

The problem was that Robert wasn’t going to be around in his life, and he was going to have to deal with that, however much pain it was sure to cause him.

“Let’s just go to the party,” Jamie relented after staring into the space between them for what felt like forever. “We can sort this tomorrow when Robert’s gone.”

The thought made a lump lodge in his throat, the idea of hearing confirmation from someone other than himself and his deeply-rooted fears that Robert was probably going to walk away and leave him all over again made him almost have to choke on the tears that threatened to fall.

He didn’t know if he could realistically cope with watching Robert Sugden walk out of his life all over again.

He barely survived the first time around.

“Come on then,” Aaron nodded his head to the side, walking off towards the village hall and turning to make sure Jamie was following him.

Something had shifted between the two of them, and Aaron wasn’t sure it would be the first time it would happen that evening, either.

 

 

-s-

 

Aaron noticed Robert’s eyes on him as soon as he walked into the party, almost as if he’d been staring at the door the whole time waiting for him to arrive.

In fact, he would have put money on him having done so.

He offered Robert a one-sided smile from across the room, seeing how Robert’s eyes dipped down and traced over the lines of his body in the suit that he knew would be causing all sorts of things to spike inside Robert’s bloodstream.

He held Robert’s gaze when his eyes finally made their way back up to his, and he swallowed past the lump in his throat with the look of pure desire in his husband’s expression.

The suit had done the trick, then.

He smiled sheepishly as he looked down to the ground.

He felt a hand across the bottom of his back – Jamie reminding him of his presence – and he shrugged it away lightly as he made his way inside the village hall, heading towards the table of gifts and placing his gift bag in amongst the others. He didn’t want to give it to Robert directly – didn’t want to be there when he opened it, didn’t want to see the look on his face, couldn’t bear to be hit with that nostalgia.

It was an expensive bottle of brandy that they’d first drunk together on the holiday they took to France one year for their anniversary, and Aaron had pulled a face at the time when Robert had made him try a glass, but his taste buds had gotten used to it after a few sips and they’d shared the whole bottle on the balcony of their villa, before they’d made love out on the veranda as a storm broke out over the vineyards in the distance. Robert had told him once that it was the most incredible night of his entire life, and Aaron had never forgotten the name of that particular type of brandy.

He’d had it imported especially a couple of years back, already aware that he was going to save it and give it Robert for his fortieth.

He didn’t quite envisage it would be under these circumstances, but he’d gone looking for the bottle at the back of his wardrobe as soon as he’d spent that first morning with Robert in the scrapyard, and he’d decided then and there that he was going to gift him the bottle anyway, regardless of how things ended between them.

Except that was it, wasn’t it?

Nothing _had_ ended between them.

Aaron doubted whether it ever would.

He felt an arm snaking around his waist, and the heat of someone closing in on him; watching Robert’s eyes darken from across the room as he focused on the space behind Aaron, and then Aaron realised who’d caused it when he inhaled the scent of Jamie’s aftershave up close to him.

“Let’s find ourselves a quiet corner to sit in,” Jamie whispered into his ear as he closed in on him from behind, his other hand on his waist as he pushed his hips up against Aaron’s arse, peppering a kiss against his neck.

Aaron shrugged him off, pulling away from his touch and rounding on his heels to give him a puzzled look.

“You’ve changed your tune,” he muttered with a look of distaste, aware precisely why Jamie was all of a sudden all over him like this when only moments before he’d been questioning his place in Aaron’s life.

“Well, you look so good tonight,” Jamie drawled, hands on his hips as Aaron faced him now, attempting to pull him in for a kiss before he found himself blocked by Aaron’s palms up against his chest.

“Stop, Jamie, please.”

Aaron stepped backwards, retreating from within Jamie’s personal space, before walking away towards the bar. He glanced over at Robert as he made his way across the room, met his eyes for half a second before Robert dipped his gaze to the ground, leaving Aaron in no doubt that he’d been watching him and Jamie throughout their exchange.

He left it another hour at least before attempting to speak to Robert, although their eyes had been doing the talking to one another throughout the party, even as Aaron had sat on the sidelines with Jamie and let Robert mingle with his guests one by one.

Jamie had attempted to make inane conversation, sitting too close for comfort and placing the occasional hand against his thigh or an arm around the back of his chair, but Aaron had found a way to shrug him aside each time, his eyes only finding Robert at every given opportunity.

He watched the birthday boy as he made his way around the room, laughing with his family in that way that had been so difficult for him at one point in his life, and noted the rare and brief appearances of that smug smile that had made him so irresistible to Aaron on so many occasions. Robert still found a way to be smug, even amongst all of this.

Every so often his eyes would track the length of the room to find Aaron, settling on him with the faintest of smiles, and occasionally catching Jamie trying to be tactile with him in some way and narrowing his eyes into daggers at the sight of it.

Aaron saw it all, and with each passing minute he became more and more aware of what was happening; more and more aware of the fact that Robert had hardly taken his eyes of him all night; more and more aware of how Jamie’s presence beside him felt redundant, unwanted, unnecessary.

He looked back over at Robert – saw that wide, bright smile of his shine out of him as he laughed at one of Liv’s jokes – and he knew there was nothing else he wanted in the world more than to be the reason for that smile again; for their family of three to be laughing together again.

He wanted to be the one to fill Robert with happiness again, and he wanted Robert to be to the one to make him feel it all too.

He felt the smile creep over his face as the realisation hit.

He wanted Robert, and Robert wanted him.

So what the hell was he waiting for? What was holding him back?

He leapt to his feet, holding Robert’s gaze as he made his way towards the dance floor towards him, feeling a renewed sense of purpose that he hadn’t feel in months; years even.

He felt a tug at his elbow, anger rising inside of him at the thought that someone would be trying to stop him in his tracks as he made his way over to Robert, made his way back to him finally after all these months.

He turned to find Jamie holding him back, pulling him towards his chest, seemingly in an effort to make him dance with him.

“What are you doing?” Aaron asked, lip curled as he shrugged Jamie’s hands off his arms, finding them clutching at his waistline instead.

“I wanna dance with my boyfriend,” he purred, attempting to be as seductive as he could manage.

“ ’m not your boyfriend,” Aaron spat back at him as the grimace curled over his face.

“Yeah you are,” Jamie whispered, before Aaron felt the palm of his hand pressing against the base of his spine, pulling him into his body, until Jamie lips were pressing against his own.

Unwanted.

He felt stunned for a second, not recognising this side to Jamie that was so persistent; so forceful all of a sudden.

When he composed himself he pushed the force of his palms against Jamie’s chest until he was stumbling backwards, could hear the scrape of metal table legs along the floor as Jamie bundled backwards into one of the tables with the force of Aaron’s rejection, a glass smashing as his arse connected with the table, beer flowing off the edge of the plastic table top.

“Aaron?” he questioned, affronted that he could have been pushed away so forcefully.

Aaron was aware of the slight hush that had descended over the room with the commotion, waiting until the volume had returned to disinterest before he turned back to the man stood before him, brushing his palms down his shirt.

“We’re over, Jamie,” Aaron told him, resolute.

“Aaron, pleas – ”

“There’s nothing here, Jamie,” he shrugged, arms out to his side. “You were a distraction, nothing more. I could have never given you more than that, I’m sorry. That man over there is the love of my life, Jamie, and I am going to get him back.”

He was pointing in the direction that he knew Robert had been in before Jamie had pulled him back and tried to force a kiss on him, but when he followed Jamie’s gaze and the point of his own finger, he found that side of the village hall empty.

Robert had gone.

He cast his eyes around the room at pace, trying to locate that beautiful flash of blond hair and those blue-grey eyes that had been staring his way all evening, and found himself wanting.

His feet moved before he realised he’d told them to, and he rounded the room until he realised his husband wasn’t there, and felt a delicate hand against his arm.

“He’s outside,” Vic told him, having watched it all unfold. “He saw. He saw Jamie kiss you and he – ”

Aaron pulled himself away from Vic’s grip before she could finish her explanation and made his way outside of the heavy wooden doors to the hall.

He glanced left and right, his expression panicked until he noticed the unmistakeable silhouette retreating away, bottle of whiskey sloshing around in his left hand, making his way into the play area and sitting on the bench, eyes fixed to the ground.

Aaron let his shoulders drop before shoving his hands inside his pockets and walking over to the bench.

“There you are.”

Aaron spoke gently, but Robert still jumped up with a start.

“Aaron. I didn’t realise you followed me.”

Robert seemed genuinely surprised that Aaron had cared enough to follow him, and Aaron could see it then – could see the same _fear_ and _regret_ reflected back in Robert’s eyes that he had coursing through his own veins.

Aaron nodded down to the bottle of whisky in Robert’s hands.

“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be sat outside drinking by yourself at your own birthday party,” Aaron joked, trying to lighten the mood as he tilted his head sideways, indicating for Robert to move up and make way for him on the bench, which he did do automatically.

Robert offered a melancholic laugh, before cracking open the seal on the whisky bottle he’d brought outside with him and taking a swig, grimacing through the burn down his throat.

He offered the bottle to his husband sat beside him, and Aaron took it from him and took down a healthy swig of his own; dutch courage.

Robert didn’t respond, instead letting the silence between the two of them fill the air, something crackling in the space between them that Robert didn’t think he had the energy to fight against.

“Remember last time we did this?” Robert asked out of the blue, passing the bottle back to Aaron after taking another couple of swigs.

Aaron let out a soft laugh.

“Liv’s 18th?” he replied.

“Yep,” Robert smiled, looking up and catching Aaron’s eye for the first time. “She was so wasted – ”

“Her speech was hilarious!” Aaron interrupted, smile breaching wide across his face.

“You’re all so niiiiiiiice,” Robert slurred, pretending to hold a microphone up to his mouth as he mimicked her, remembering every drawn out word of her drunken speech as if it were merely days ago. “I loooooove yooouuuuu,” he continued through a laugh, Aaron smirking along with him before they both realised what he’d said; what weight those words held.

The quietness descended and the atmosphere shifted between them.

Robert took another swig of whiskey, before Aaron snatched the bottle from him and took a swig of his own.

“You saw Jamie,” Aaron started tentatively. “You saw him try to kiss me?”

Robert let out a bitter laugh, his gaze shifting to the ground as he shook his head.

“I couldn’t stay and watch it, I’m not going to apologise,” Robert replied bitterly.

“You don’t need to apologise, Rob. I understand.”

Robert refused to let himself look Aaron in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron continued, unsure of himself as he took another sip from the bottle, still wincing with the unpleasant taste as it burnt down his throat. “You should never have had to see that. And not tonight, especially.”

“I should probably get used to it,” Robert muttered under his breath.

Aaron scrubbed a palm against his face, lips starting to tingle as the alcohol started to take effect.

He took a deep breath before steeling himself, realising there was a question that had been haunting him ever since he’d heard that Robert was returning; for the whole of the past year, too, if he was honest.

He needed to face up to it and find out.

“Are you…are you seeing anyone? Back in Birmingham?”

His voice was weakened, resisting the break as he faced his one and only demon – the thought of his husband with someone else.

“Are you joking?” Robert replied, looking up at Aaron for the first time since he’d arrived to sit beside him.

“What?” Aaron questioned, as if the question was obvious, as if he hadn’t even considered that Robert would answer with anything other than a yes.

“Of course I’m not seeing anyone,” Robert answered, gaze fixed on the floor before he worked up the courage to raise his head and look Aaron straight in the eye. “There’s nobody else. There never will be. No one,” _comes close,_ he wanted to say, but he let the absence of the words drift between them, watched the shadows of them dance in the dusky air as he regarded the knowing look on Aaron’s face.

After a few seconds Aaron let out a laugh, as if in disbelief.

“I thought you’d have them queuing up,” he admitted quietly, attempting and failing to appear as casual as he could do. “You always did when we were together.”

It was light-hearted, and Aaron was smiling with it, and it elicited a smile from Robert, but soon enough the painful memory of the time he was back here – when he’d had everything he could have ever wanted or needed and he’d let himself take it all for granted – it burned like a fire that was roaring inside of him, and it _hurt._

He took another swig of the whisky bottle, passed it across to his husband as he wiped away the droplets from his mouth.

“Yeah, well,” Robert started, unsure if he should finish the sentence that had been welling up inside of him, but he could taste the bitterness of the whisky on his lips and it made him daring, and he knew it was tonight or never. “I’ve still got a queue, thank you very much,” he smirked. “I could have someone if I wanted to. It’s just that nobody in that queue seems good enough anymore. I only ever wanted you, Aaron. I still only want you.”

He watched the weight of his words sink in on his husband’s face – the way his eyes widened in shock and his lips parted as if to say something before closing again with hesitation, unsure how he was meant to respond.

Robert took his silence to speak volumes – too quick to take any hint that the doubts he’d let well up inside of him could have been justified – and he decided for a shift in focus.

“You and Jamie,” Robert said, the words feeling sour on his tongue, the memory of the sight of Jamie leaning in and pushing a kiss against Aaron’s lips in the hall minutes earlier flashing through his mind, haunting him as he forced the question out. “Is it serious?”

“No,” Aaron answered, without hesitation.

The certainty in his tone made Robert snap his head up and focus on Aaron, as if it hadn’t been the answer he’d been expecting.

“You brought him here?”

“You asked me to,” Aaron argued, almost offended that Robert seemed to be implying Jamie meant more to him than he did.

Robert laughed as he looked back to the ground.

“What’s he like,” he asked solemnly, unsure he really wanted to know the answer.

He waited for it, and he half expected Aaron to ignore it and walk away from him, until he felt Aaron shift beside him, and suddenly there were warm, familiar fingertips grazing along the underside of his chin, encouraging him to turn and look Aaron in the eye.

“He’s not you,” Aaron admitted, a tear escaping his eye and making tracks against his cheeks as Robert looked back at him, feeling like his world was finally falling back into place. “Me and him are over, Robert. He’s not you,” Aaron repeated, like the words were all that ever mattered.

“What do you – ”

“He’s not you!” Aaron repeated again, interrupting, a smile breaking out over his face to drown out his annoyance that Robert just wasn’t letting himself believe it. “Nobody will ever be you, Robert. And I don’t want anyone but you, I never have done and I never will do – ”

“Don’t say this unless you mean it, Aaron,” Robert begged, turning on the bench to face his husband, drinking in every nuance of the emotions he wore so openly, reading them in the exact way he hoped they were intended; in a way that made his blood rush through his body and his heart beat race in that way it hadn’t done in almost a year.

He felt Aaron take a hold of his hand, and the spark thrilled through him, and with one look into Aaron’s eye he felt like all of his prayers had been answered, and it was _too good, too good_ for him to allow himself to believe it.

“I need you to be – ”

“I just need you,” Aaron interrupted him, and before he had a second to process it he felt the rush of Aaron’s hand circling the back of his neck, carding through the short hairs there as he urged forwards, pulling Robert towards him and pushing his lips up against Robert’s with a hunger he mirrored in every way.

Robert relented into it for a second, every single one of his emotions heightened beyond belief as he grabbed at Aaron’s jawline, palms spreading over that familiar scrape of his stubble, tilting his head to fit himself alongside Aaron, responding to the groan in Aaron’s voice as he parted his lips and trailed his tongue alongside his bottom lip, aware of Aaron’s hips shuffling closer to him on the wooden bench they sat on as he felt the dizzying rush of Aaron’s tongue against his own, vibrations humming through their kiss from the both of them as they drowned into the intensity of their reunion.

Robert’s heart beat was racing, head spinning, hands grabbing hurriedly against Aaron’s body, through his hair, along those broad shoulders as he pulled him in closer, lips tingling with the sensation of it all, overwhelming him as he realised Aaron was replicating every single emotion of his own – the whimpering, the desperation, the need, the threat of the tears that could fall from him so easily now, the thirst that he knew could never be sated.

That last thought left a sense of unease bubbling through him – the realisation that he wouldn’t ever be done with Aaron; that he couldn’t allow for this kiss to be anything less than what he needed it to be.

It was that thought that made him pull away; tearing lips from pleading lips and standing up to put some distance between them.

He watched Aaron’s shock at his withdrawal, saw the way his hands were still outstretched as if Robert were still next to him, his body still turned in towards where Robert had been sitting, his lips still ready to be kissed.

“Robert, what? What are you…what?” Aaron questioned him desperately, nonsensical, the threat of tears prickling in his eyes at the realisation that Robert could be about to walk away from him again.

“I can’t,” Robert rubbed at his face with his palm as he stood before Aaron on the bench, pacing back and forth and wiping away the tears from his eyes. “I can’t go through it again, Aaron. It broke me to pieces and I can’t do it all again.”

“What do you mean?” Aaron questioned, his tone begging for Robert with everything that he had.

“Us, this,” Robert gestured between the two of them, like that was all the explanation he needed to give. “What is this?”

Aaron sighed, squeezing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger in an effort to stem the flow of his tears.

“I don’t know,” he answered before thinking about the words he was saying.

“I need you to work it out, Aaron,” Robert interjected before Aaron had the chance to say anything further. “I need you to know that you want this because there is nothing in this world I want more than to have you back in my life, to call you my husband again, to never see you even go _near_ another guy again, because it doesn’t matter if we’re separated or whatever that is always going to kill me to see. You are the love of my life, Aaron, and you forever will be, and I have been broken – so fucking _broken_ – this past year without you, and I hate myself for letting it get so far that you moved on – ”

“I didn’t move on!”

The words pierced through Robert’s stream of consciousness, and for the first time he looked up and noticed that Aaron was crying, that his heart was breaking in the exact same place that Robert’s was.

“I never moved on from you, Robert. How could I?”

Robert watched the way that Aaron’s face distorted with the mere thought of it, and he felt the cracks of his heart starting to fuse back together with each second that passed.

“I can’t do this if this is just tonight, Aaron,” he told him, walking back towards the bench so he could look Aaron in the eye. “I can’t do one night with you, I need more than that Aaron, so if this is just some one-off thing for old time’s sake – ”

“It’s not, Robert,” Aaron reassured him, reaching out to take the hand that rested on Robert’s hip, wrapping his fingers around it tightly and pulling it towards him, kissing at the knuckles of his husband’s hands before letting himself nuzzle his own cheek against the softness of his skin.

“I can’t be apart from you any more, Aaron. It’s breaking me.”

“It’s breaking me to be apart from you, Robert,” Aaron assured him, soft lips lingering against the skin of his hands still. “It was you that left. I…I thought you’d moved on? I thought you didn’t want me – ”

“I’ll never not want you, Aaron. How could I move on?” he felt the crack in his voice more than he heard it, and he noticed the way that Aaron’s eyelids flickered as he heard it too, so aware of every nuance of his emotion that Robert knew Aaron believed his every word because of it. “I left because it was too painful to stop around here without living at Mill with you and Liv. I left because I couldn’t bear to see you every day and not _be with you_. I left because I felt nothing but pain whenever I looked at you. I left _because_ I loved you Aaron, and because I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

“I had no idea,” Aaron admitted with a shake of his head, disbelief now that he’d managed to convince himself of a life without Robert, that he’d wasted a year of his life in misery for no good reason. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“Aaron, don’t be ridiculous,” Robert laughed, moving himself further towards Aaron as he crouched down, head level with Aaron’s as the younger man sat at the bench, elbows almost resting against Aaron’s knees as he lingered before him. “Getting away from here, it didn’t work - of course it didn’t. I’ve felt nothing but pain, have lived everyday with nothing but memories of you, and this place, and everything that we had. Why do you think I’m still alone?”

He let the question linger in the air between them for a few seconds, inviting a response that never came.

“Nobody compares to you, Aaron. Any person I tried to…move on with? They just paled in comparison. Every single person – man, woman, whatever – they left me cold and empty, and all I wanted was you. Aaron, you’re all I’ve _ever_ wanted, and no one else comes close. I love you.”

Before he had the change to gauge Aaron’s reaction, he felt the heat of Aaron’s lips against his own again, and the pull of Aaron’s hands against the back of his hair. He parted his lips, let Aaron’s tongue inside and they fell back into it so easily – the passion, the flare, the excitement, the beating hearts and the thrumming through veins – and he knew then, more than he’d ever known before, that he was home.

Aaron was his home.

And he’d finally managed to find his way back.

There was a clash of teeth against teeth in the desperation of it all, and they pulled apart at the impact of it, the both of them laughing as they rested their foreheads up against one another, eyes glistening under the moonlight as they gazed at one another, Aaron’s hands fisted into the lapels of Robert’s shirt and jacket, Robert’s framing Aaron’s jawline as his fingertips traced lightly against his neckline.

“There wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t wish you were back here, Rob,” Aaron whispered, closing his eyes as he shied away from the emotional overexposure. “I’ve never felt so….lost. So broken, or helpless. I can face the world when I’ve got you here with me Robert. I don’t ever wanna have to face it on my own again.”

“You’ll never have to, I promise.”

Aaron smiled, nodding against Robert’s forehead before opening his eyes and catching that look in Robert’s eye – the one that had haunted him in his dreams for the past year with the fear that he’d never get to see it again; the one that told him he was the centre of this man’s universe.

He leant forwards and kissed Robert again, taking in the bitter taste of whisky that he knew Robert would be tasting on his own lips too. He swiped a tongue against Robert’s lips to deepen the kiss, shuffling himself forwards on the bench until he was perched on the edge, pulling Robert closer as he crouched down still in between his legs, pulling him forwards until his knees pushed into the gravel on the floor beneath them, allowing him to shuffle closer into Aaron’s embrace, his hips nestled between Aaron’s thighs.

He groaned into the kiss as Robert deepened it further, and he felt his body keening into Robert’s touch along his back, pushing his hips further forwards, and he could feel the intoxicating pulse of Robert’s need for him beneath the thin material of his suit trousers.

He laughed, pulling away from the kiss, eyes lighting up as he saw the all-knowing smile spread across his husband’s face too.

He felt like his heart was full to bursting.

“Do you wanna go somewhere?” Aaron asked, voice low and dripping in suggestion.

“Fuck, yes,” Robert answered without hesitation, laughing with Aaron as they both realised the depth of their desperation for one another; how some things never changed. “I’m staying at Vic’s,” Robert informed him, as if Aaron didn’t already know, “or we can go to yours?”

Aaron sighed, looking up at him through his lashes.

“Ours, Robert,” he corrected him. “It’s always been ours.”

Robert couldn’t even try to suppress the smile that covered his face at the sound of that; there really was nothing quite like coming home.

“I love you, Mr Sugden,” was all he could offer in response, his heart beating out of his chest.

“I love you too, Mr Dingle,” Aaron smiled back. “I never stopped.”

Robert forgot to breathe for a second or two – overwhelmed with happiness that he thought he’d lost forever – but he rediscovered his ability to function with a deep intake of breath as he pushed up on his heels to stand up, brushing down the gravel on the knees of his suit trousers. He held out his hand to Aaron to pull him up off the bench, his heart clenching when Aaron didn’t let go of his hand once he was stood, instead twisting it around to link their fingers together as they walked across the village back to the Mill.

 

 

 

 

 

“I told you it was a good idea.”

Vic stood in the doorway of the village hall, looking up at Chas with a proud smile on her face.

“Well, fair play to you, you were right, kiddo,” Chas beamed back at her, the pair of them watching as the two silhouetted figures made their way up through the darkness of the village, hand in hand, heart in heart, and the rest of their lives out in front of them.

Vic turned to Liv beside her, offering her a quick high five.

“Good work,” she congratulated Vic, smile stretched wide across her face. “But I hope you know I’m sleeping at the pub tonight, Chas.”

“I thought as much,” Chas sighed contentedly as she offered Liv a knowing smirk.

“No way am I sharing a bedroom wall with them two tonight,” she laughed. “In fact I might need to stay for a week, it’ll probably take them that long to surface.”

“I don’t wanna know,” Chas waved the thought away with a playful roll of her eyes, before they all watched the two of them disappear into the distance, and returned back to the party in full flow behind them.

 

 

 

 

 

Robert might not have got much sleep that night, or the next few nights afterwards for that matter, but in the days and weeks that followed, he found himself sleeping better than he had done in years – back in their bedroom, in their home, wrapped up in Aaron’s arms once again.

And this time, they both knew it really was forever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was an absolute labour of love - so please let me know if you liked it!  
> As always I'm on tumblr - wellyfullofale  
> xxx


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